


All Kats Are Grey In The Dark

by ectoBisexual



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Aphrodisiacs, Bro and John are fucking, Dirty Talk, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Horn Stimulation, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phobias, Praise Kink, Sexual Tension, Smut, Suicide Attempt, TW: Self Harm, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:53:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 91,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoBisexual/pseuds/ectoBisexual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat can't think of anything worse than being stuck in the same universe as Dave Strider, until he's stuck in the same dorm room as him. Worse than that, the same bed, because Strider's apparently too poor to pay for another one. Whatever. He just hopes Dave doesn't call attention to the fact that he still clings to shit when he sleeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic published on here but not my first fic. So erm. Yeah. Davekat Collegestuck AU. uwu  
> Also I still have no idea how to change the fonts and colours, so please excuse me while I get my shit together.

It was a warm, bright spring morning when Karkat Vantas decided to kill himself.  
  
The school halls were filled with the usual mild aroma of sweat and overbearing human deoderant, but they were mostly empty because it was the last day and no one cool  _actually_ came on the last day. Apparently. Not that Karkat would know, because he was far beyond cool, and had been, ever since he'd enrolled in this place. He was constantly reminded every day.  
  
Something was different to the usually tepid air and Karkat couldn't figure out what it was until he had pushed past the school gates. It was especially hot today, but it wasn't  _balmly,_ and it wasn't the kind of heat that clung to your skin beneath your thick, loose-fitting sweater somehow and made you feel like you were wearing ten of them. It was the kind of heat that warmed your neck first and foremost and reminded you that there was a pleasant summer in your future. Or that maybe you were already in said pleasant summer. He didn't quite know, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Not that he wanted to. Karkat didn't want anything, in any way, shape or form, to change the mind that he'd made up when he'd finally pulled himself from bed this morning.  
  
He'd gone through the motions of his regular morning routine—he'd woken up, dressed, eaten, brushed his teeth, immersed in self-mockery of his own untame hair—and then he'd decided to kill himself at exactly 3:01 when school got out for the day and everyone would start to come home. He'd thought, maybe they'd all go down to the beach to celebrate. And maybe they'd see his body.  
  
Sure, it was a horrible, horrible thing to think; rather cruel, actually, and selfish even by his standards. But he couldn't help it. This went far beyond just feeling hormonal and angsty and adolescent. He didn't even have the capacity to feel sorry for himself anymore. He felt he was just a walking shade of absolute nothingness, and the only feeling he had left was pain and he wanted to stop it. For good.  
  
So he'd spent much of his day planning this. He'd thought out where he'd do it, how he'd do it, what his last words would be. For some reason that was the most important part to Karkat; his last words. No one else would hear them, sure, but he didn't want to leave this world with the last thing he'd said being something like,  _yes, Mr Keenes, here's my homework,_ or,  _ahhh!_  
So he first promised not to scream on the fall down and then to say something with at least a small amount of substance or meaning to him before he did it. And he didn't know what that was yet, but he knew he wouldn't jump until at least some words came out of his mouth.  
  
Karkat wasn't having troubles at home. Since his family had moved with him, he'd lost absolutely nothing. He wasn't from one of those sob-story broken families or anything, and he didn't get abused. School was more of a problem, but he wasn't the only one who got bullied and he knew that. None of those conventional things were the problem and Karkat knew that too, he knew it so well and it killed him to think that the reason he was doing this was something  _in_ him, not something influenced by other people that could be solved by running from  _them._ He couldn't run from himself. He couldn't run from the part of him that cried for attention but despised it, he couldn't run from the part of him that hated pain but craved it; Karkat couldn't run from the abhorrent oxymoron that he knew he was. Fuck, he knew it.  
  
Humming the tune to a stupid song he would never learn the name to, Karkat rounded the corner and the beach came in to view. His tune was one of an eerie persuasion. It sounded forced and stiff and wrong and nothing at all like how he sang and hummed normally; not that he'd done that in a while. It might have even been a whole human year since he'd last sang. Karkat just didn't have a reason to sing anymore.  
  
His song faded when he reached the first step. Swallowing, Karkat tilted his head to stare up at the entirity of the flight of stairs that led to what would be his last place. He'd counted them four days ago. There were forty two.  
  
Karkat moved up the steps one by one, not rushing. It had only been 2:49 when he'd left school. He counted in his head as he went, partially to double-check the number of stairs and partially so that he didn't start thinking and having doubts about doing this. Karkat couldn't afford second guesses.  
  
Besides, what reason could he possibly have to not do this? His family?  _Well, they would miss him._ His friends, who were hardly even friends?  _Sollux would be crushed. This would surely scar Nepeta for life. Gamzee would go mental._ Karkat bit down on his lip hard and started counting louder. "...Thirty  _four,_ thirty  _five,_ thirty  _six_..."  
  
Finally, he reached the top of the stairs and his feet relaxed a little as they found flat ground to walk on. The first wooden board creaked as soon as Karkat's full weight was on it, and he grimaced, again feeling overweight even though if anything he was undernourished. He'd been feeling like that a lot lately. Wrong in every possible way. Maybe he was.  
  
The distance between the end of the stairs and the end of the pier had never felt longer to Karkat before in his whole life. He'd been here so many times, too, that it felt like habit to walk the distance. He knew the smell so familiarly. The sounds were natural to him. If things hadn't been so grim, Karkat might have paused and smiled and decided that this was what nostalgia was like.  
  
He checked his watch when he was halfway across the boardwalk. 2:55. Perfect. Karkat quickened his pace only slightly for fear that time would somehow run out and he'd chicken out of doing this.  
  
Karkat began to have what he guessed were his last thoughts before dying as he got closer and closer. He wished he'd at least had a short respite from all that had been taking over his life, like a relationship or a bond with a good book or a moment with a great song, but he hadn't. Karkat hadn't even come  _close_ to finding a matesprit, fuck, filling  _any_ quadrants that didn't involve his goddamn shit excuse of a moirail, and knew he never would. Even if he  _didn't_ do this, he doubted he ever would. He was disgusting.  
  
Plus, it wasn't very aggrandizing to have mild bi-polar disorder and clinical depression; well, that's what Rose had told him. He's still not sure if she'd been serious or just making fun of him. He guessed he'd never know and he didn't really care anyway, because what she'd said made enough sense for him to guess it was true. Karkat tried to think of the last thing he'd heard from Rose to keep his mind from pondering the possible mental disorders. He was pretty sure it had been along the lines of,  _sometimes I wonder about you and what bridge you're actually crossing,_ and he hadn't known what that had meant but she'd said it right after she'd witnessed him being beaten up by a group of dickheads he didn't even know, and right before she'd taken him in to the girl's bathroom to clean him up.  
  
There was an almost inaudible shuffle of sneaker on wood as Karkat reached the end of the pier and stopped. It wasn't like a regular pier, it was a lookout pier, with a railing in place so that people didn't do exactly what he was planning on doing. It overlooked a deeper part of the ocean, complete with terrifying, jaggedy rocks that jutted from the water's surface and swallowed up all of the foam that crashed against them. Karkat was unable to stop a long shiver from snaking its way through his body at the thought of how much this was going to hurt.  
  
 _Oh well,_ he thought, shaking his head and blinking a few times.  _It'll only hurt for as long as it takes me to die._  
  
Karkat checked his watch again. 2:56. He gripped a cool bar of the railing in front of him and lifted his feet on to the one below it. It took some manouvering, but Karkat managed to get his short frame over the bars and around them, so that he was clinging to the outside of them and hanging down over the pier, still with his feet firmly planted on the lowest bar and his hands keeping him supported.  
  
As soon as he opened his eyes and looked down at the crashing waves and rolling abyssmal depths, panic washed through his body and he was unable to stop, "shitshitshitshit" from escaping his mouth. Karkat's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he shut them tight, gripping the bars so tight that it hurt his knuckles. He took one deep breath, then another. This would all be over in a second. He'd never have to get another beating again. He'd never have to cover up a scar on his wrist again. He'd never have to bash a wall out of pure frustration of not being able to feel a damn thing, ever again. Because now he'd have a reason not to feel, and that would be because he was dead, long forgotten like he knew he would be. A smile cracked on to his face, but he kept his eyes shut.  
  
The sound of the wind up here was almost defeaning. It blew his hair in crazy directions, made his eyes water, almost completely won over the sound of his blood pounding in his ears. Karkat loosened his grip just a little and felt more free than he'd felt in a long time. He felt reckless. Excited, even. But maybe he was just mistaking his fear for excitement. Karkat considered checking his watch but remembered the alarm he'd set on his phone. He decided to wait.  
  
 _Beep._  
  
Karkat almost let go, when it occurred to him that the sound was different to his alarm. He frowned, wondering what it was and where he'd heard it before.  
  
 _Beep._  
  
Recognition flashed through his mind and he let go with one hand to fish his phone out of his back pocket, pressing his back harder against the railing in case he fell. His trollian app was flashing obnoxiously at him, and so was the name of the person trying to contact him. Karkat narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth, cursing the genius who'd thought it was a good idea to have trollian and pesterchum become compatible.  _Of all fucking people,_ he thought, and clicked on the blinking app anyway.  
  
TG: why arent you in school  
  
Karkat stared at the message for the longest time, trying to work out what it was he was feeling. It was a feeling of anger that run deeper than what he normally felt, and he wasn't exactly sure why. It might have been because he absolutely loathed the person who had sent him a message, but then again, he hadn't done much in the way of harming Karkat, so he didn't have much reason to. Moreso, it was just because of how fucking  _up himself_ Strider was, and the fact that just because he hadn't bullied Karkat himself, didn't mean he'd done anything to help him against the people who had. So Karkat decided the feeling was  _absolute_ hatred and that Dave was an asshole. Still, he replied.  
  
CG: NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS STRIDER  
  
Karkat sighed and thought over the fact that yes, he really was going to die having yet another person hate him. Unless Dave hated him anyway, which he probably did. Like most people. He started to put his phone back in his pocket when it went off again and almost scared him right off of the railing. He swore under his breath and fumbled to turn it back on.  
  
TG: just a question  
TG: sollux is looking for you  
  
Karkat squeezed his eyes shut a moment.  _Shit. Shitshitshit._ This was not going as he had planned.  
  
CG: YEAH WELL TELL HIM I'M FINE. I LEFT SCHOOL EARLY.  
  
The time was 2:58. Karkat knew he should put his phone back in his pocket before Dave could reply and give him further second thoughts by talking about how his stupid friends were looking for him. But for whatever reason, he kept the phone firmly in his hand until Dave replied.  
  
TG: are you fine?  
  
Karkat wasn't sure why that made him so mad.  
  
CG: NOT THAT ITS ANY OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS, BUT I AM FINE.  
  
There, thought Karkat. Now Dave could see how much of an asshole he was, give up, and Karkat could end this and not have to worry about it again. His phone beeped.  
  
TG: youre not  
TG: look, i know you hate me  
TG: like absolutely loathe my guts or whatever  
TG: but im concerned on solluxs behalf right now because hes sort of beside himself  
  
There was a short moment before Dave added,  
  
TG: so am i, actually  
TG: where are you?  
  
Karkat started to panic.  _Put the phone away,_ he told himself, mind becoming frantic.  _Put it away and jump. Hurry the fuck up already, fuckass! It's already 2:59!_  
  
CG: IM AT THE BEACH.  
  
 _Fuck,_ he thought, not so much mentally slapping himself as doing it physically. He bit down  _hard_ on his tongue, and tears sprang in his eyes. Now he really would have no choice but to jump now. And Dave would probably be the first to find his body.  
  
TG: karkat  
TG: i swear i mean absolutely no offense  
TG: so dont freak if im wrong or i say something stupid  
TG: but why are you at the beach?  
  
 _Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck-_  
  
CG: WHY DO YOU CARE? YOU DONT HAVE TO FUCKING CARE ABOUT ME ANYMORE. NO ONE DOES.

  
Karkat could feel himself on the verge of tears, and it was that moment that he realised how much he wanted Dave to have a reason. He didn't know why; he didn't like Dave, he had no reason to care about what he thought of him. But he suddenly found himself wanting Dave to have a reason for caring and to tell him to stop what he was doing so that he had a reason to get off of this railing. Karkat choked back a broken sob.  
  
TG: shit...  
TG: im right arent i?  
TG: shit.  
TG: SHIT karkat  
TG: youre at the one near the school, right??  
TG: dont you DARE fucking move from where you are  
  
Karkat began to shiver uncontrollably. It was 3:00 now.  
  
CG: NO  
CG: DONT COME  
CG: SERIOUSLY DAVE, ITS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS  
CG: IM FINE AND I NEED TO DO THIS, PLEASE  
  
He hesitated a moment.  
  
CG: LOOK AFTER EVERYONE FOR ME  
CG: ESPECIALLY GAMZEE  
  
Karkat took a very deep breath and put his phone back in to his pocket. There was no reply from Dave.  
  
Each moment seemed to tick on for an hour, each sound echoing in his ear and coming in to physical contact with his every fibre. He could  _feel_ the crashes of water on rock. And already he could feel the pain.  
  
To chase away the pain, he gave a bitter laugh, and then spat through his teeth, " _Fucking_ Strider," because he knew they would be his last words, and he wanted them to be. ' _Fucking_ Strider' kind of summed up just exactly how he felt and he thought that they were as good as any shitty sentimental revelation of life or whatever; so they'd be his last words.  
  
Karkat took another deep breath and then didn't breathe at all as the timer went off in his pocket.  
  
Slowly, he started to loosen his grip on the railing.  
  
" _Karkat?!_ "  
  
Karkat froze and his eyes opened wide.  _SHIT._  
  
Suddenly everything was happening very fast as opposed to the slow motion movie he'd been in seconds ago, and there were fast, heavy footsteps on the top stairs and suddenly he was being yanked back over and he was letting it happen, and then he sobbed once and everything came out and he didn't even care that it was Dave Strider who had saved him. Karkat fell forward and cried hard in to Dave's shirt, sending the two of them toppling to the ground together. Dave half-swore under his breath and grabbed at Karkat almost violently, holding him tight as he cried and wailed and sobbed and just let every broken piece of himself out in to his would-be-enemy's shirt, soaking it right through immediately.  
  
"Shit...Karkat..." Dave, for once, couldn't think of anything to say. Through his shades his eyes were wide and glistening and trembling with fear he hadn't known he'd possessed so strongly but thankfully Karkat couldn't see, he couldn't even see how Dave's usually straight and impassive mouth was set open in horror because his face was buried in the boy's chest.  
  
"Fucking...hate you...I was so fucking close...could have done it...could have jumped...fuck you Strider...I would have been happy...everyone would have...been...happy..."  
  
"No one would have been  _happy,_ you asshole, not if you were dead," Dave hissed back, holding the smaller of the two tighter. He didn't care how thick and shaky and angry and uncool his words were, because there was no one around to hear them but Karkat and anyway, this was fucking  _serious_ and no amount of cool could even matter or occur to him right now.  
  
"Yes they would have...better off without me...fucking worthless..."  
  
"Shh, not worthless, shit, Kar. Sit up."  
Karkat couldn't, at least not for a while and not without Dave's help. Eventually he was sitting before Dave, his face a mess of tears and anguish.  
Dave frowned, and Karkat tried desperately to see through his shades and find where he was actually looking. He couldn't, of course, and it occurred to him that he'd never even seen Dave's eyes before. Moments ago he was going to die that way.   
  
Finally, Dave said, "Show me your arms."  
  
Karkat rolled up his sleeves only because he was too scared and sad and confused and tired to think why he shouldn't, and also because he knew Dave knew what he would find. Dave found exactly what he'd thought he would, which were numerous cuts and marks and scars that showed the troll's deep red blood almost all the way up to his elbows. Karkat shook and cried as Dave studied both arms, still with the same frown on his face that Karkat realised he hadn't seen before. He'd always thought Dave was too "cool" for that, which was probably another one of the reasons he hated him.  
  
An annoying little voice at the back of Karkat's mind reminded him that he was being awfully open to someone he hated, but he ignored it. He'd hate Dave both for the kind of person he was and what he'd stopped Karkat from doing later. For now, he would just cry and let the nearest person comfort him and not think about why he was so glad it was Dave and not anyone else.  
  
Once Dave was apparently satisfied he let Karkat's arms go and Karkat fumbled to pull his sleeves back, wishing he was somewhere at the bottom of the ocean already.  
He looked down, still unable to stop crying, even though it was stupid and fucking  _pathetic_ and in front of  _Dave_ no less. Karkat had long ago decided not to cry in front of anyone ever, because he thought he was weak enough already, yet here he was, full on bawling in front of a guy he hated. If that wasn't irony he gave up trying to find out what was.  
  
Karkat kept his gaze fixed straight down and just when he decided to get up and run away like he always did, unexpectedly, Dave grabbed his chin and roughly ordered his face up and forward.  
Karkat readied himself and he didn't know why or for what, until it occured to him, as he watched Dave stare straight at him with his shades, that he had expected Dave to  _kiss_ him. Karkat felt cold all over, colder than he already did if it was possible. He worried he might pass out purely because of how overwhelming everything was. He couldn't even comprehend how ridiculous that was.  
  
Karkat stared at Dave pathetically, sobs and hiccups still shaking his body, his face a complete wreck of tears. He wished he could see Dave's eyes. He wondered if he was glaring, or just looking, or anything else. Karkat stared back at Dave for a while longer until finally, in a cold, completely uncool voice not at all like his own, Dave said, "Don't you  _ever_ do something like that again. Do you understand?"  
  
Karkat didn't reply. He couldn't. He just felt more tears pour out, not because Dave was making him promise but because he realised he  _couldn't_ promise. How could he promise Dave if he couldn't promise himself? He  _wished_ he had done it, instead of answering his phone like a moron.  
  
Karkat tried to pull his face away, but Dave kept him in place, which would have hurt Karkat had his face not been so numb. " _Karkat._ Don't you even  _think_ about doing something like that again. Do you realise how many people would miss you? Do you even-" Dave stopped with a choked sort of noise, and Karkat was confused a moment before he realised that it was because he was  _crying._ Dave let go of Karkat's face and let his arm fall pathetically, covering his face with his hands as he cried, hair hanging over his bowed head in front of Karkat. Both were on their knees, the railings keeping them from being in any danger of falling.  
  
Hands shaking terribly, Karkat reached forward and pulled Dave's shades off of his face and placed them on the ground next to him, slowly, just in case Dave pulled back or freaked out. But he didn't, he just sat still and let him do it, blinking away tears still as he trembled.  
  
Karkat first couldn't believe that the self-proclaimed cool kid god of impassiveness was letting this happen, but then he forgot all thoughts like that when he saw his eyes.  
  
They were  _red._  
  
Not even tinted red, either, but  _really_ red, like candy red and almost crimson, and there was no sign of contact lenses at all as he stared back at Karkat with glimmering tears still pooling and washing out some of the color.   
  
Karkat swallowed, unsure of his feelings. He wouldn't admit it,  _ever,_ but in that moment he really,  _really_ wanted to kiss Dave, which was a silly thought because Dave was the most ignorant human he'd ever met and post suicide attempt was not the most romantic scenario Karkat could think of. But still, the thought was there, spreading like a fog through his mind until he had to  _physically_ tear his eyes from Dave, not sure what to do. He felt bad for making him cry; he felt  _terrible_ knowing he was the cause of it, actually. Again, he wished he hadn't answered his phone. Maybe then Dave wouldn't have cried.  
  
Dave swallowed finally, still shaking and trying to stop the flow of tears. "Please," He said, but there was no mistaking how weak his voice was. "Don't do it again."  
  
Karkat shook harder. "I...I can't."  
Dave shook his head, and all at once, his sadness turned to anger. He grabbed Karkat by the shoulders, baring his teeth at him savagely. " _Bullshit._ Don't kid me, you asshole, just  _promise._ You have no fucking idea how many people would miss you if you went and did something stupid like that! If you...if you did that...I'd...I couldn't..." Dave seemed to lose his train of thought, and his gaze was dropped somewhere below eye level on Karkat's face. Karkat froze, stuck still to the spot when Dave's hands slid from his shoulders to his back. Still without making eye contact, one of his hands kept sliding until it was at Karkat's neck. Karkat took a quick, sharp intake of breath, and the two of them met eyes.  
  
Shakily, he swallowed and said, "No one would miss me."  
  
Without blinking or flinching, Dave said, "I would miss you", and then he kissed him.  
  
Karkat had thought of what his first kiss would be like a million times over. He never really thought about who it would be with, but since he was both a romantic and a realist, he thought of it being brief and shy and a little awkward. He knew he wouldn't know what to do and that it would take some practising.   
  
But he couldn't have been more wrong.  
  
More accurately, Karkat didn't even  _think_ about how to kiss, he just  _did_ it, and when he did it he squeezed his eyes shut and clung to Dave and kissed him with everything he had, every single feeling he'd ever had pouring out at once.   
Dave held him back just as desperately, his fingers clenching the material of the troll's oversized sweatshirt as he kissed back furiously.  
  
Karkat's arms went higher and wrapped tight around Dave's neck, holding him closer as they kissed. He thought the kiss tasted like salt, both from the air and the tears but he didn't care, because his mind was fuzzy and cloudy and all he could think about was the twisting feeling in his stomach and how  _right_ this felt.  
  
 _Dave, keep kissing Dave, don't worry about anything else except kissing Dave..._  
  
 _...Dave..._  
  
Dave.  
  
As if by magic, all at once, Karkat realised who he was kissing and what he was doing and the circumstances he was under and he pulled away from the kiss violently, shoving Karkat back and scurrying a number of feet backwards away from him, hands flying to his mouth.  
  
Dave looked equally as shocked, but said nothing as Karkat stood up, and fled the scene.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author uses Time Skip and it is somewhat effective.

Four years later.

Dave crossed campus, a slight bounce in his step both because it was Friday and because his best bro in the world is visiting him. This made it a particularly great Friday, but he didn't show that; anyone who didn't know the kid personally would just assume he was having one of his usual days, complete with his impassive expression and unreadable eyes behind aviators.

It had been far too long since they'd last met up--what was it, a whole ten months now?--and already, Dave could feel a tremendous weight being lifted from his chest cast by the absense of his best friend as he scanned the whole of campus for the familiar brunette head.

He spotted him on the northern end of campus just like he had expected to, standing amongst the human portion of the university's students. A pesterchum notification flashed obnoxiously in front of his face, warning him that he has a message from John. Instead of checking it, he dismissed his glasses and raised a hand in greeting, shouting before he can stop himself, "John! Hey man, what's up?"

John's head whipped in his direction, all wide-eyed and big-teeth and smiley, and then he squealed the blonde's name and bounded in to his arms.  
To anyone else, the display would have looked like two long distance boyfriends reuiniting after a long time apart.  
They kind of were that, actually.  
They just weren't dating.

John was grinning when he pulled back from the hug, bumping Dave's fist with his own. "Hey, you got your braces off!"  
Dave rolled his eyes, nudging his best friend's shoulder playfully. "Yeah, well. So did you."  
John licked his teeth, looking excited. "Yeah, just last week. Oh man, it was so scary. I really thought they were going to rip my mouth in two this time!"  
Dave smirked. "Did you make Bro hold your hand?"

He made a satisfied noise when John's entire face heated up in response.

About a year ago, when they'd just finished high school, Dave and John had planned to move in together. Dave had always imagined that they'd grow old together with their respective partners, teach their kids to be bros just like they were, but when he imagined this he kind of ruled out a pretty important addition to their future: college.

This had resulted in some pretty violent arguments; John wanted to stay in Washington, Dave was attending a school just outside of Chicago, and neither of them wanted to go to Texas. In the end, John got in to an elite school in Texas and they decided that they'd just part ways for the time being; after all, it wasn't very cool to cry over a little bit of distance. The next crisis at hand had been where John was going to stay. Dave's school had dorms, which was lucky for him, because he certainly didn't have the money for an apartment. John, as it just so happened, also didn't have money for an apartment.

He'd come crying--honest to God crying--to Dave about a week before he was meant to be leaving, because his dad was seriously going to pay for a place for him to stay. Dave hadn't at first grasped why this was such a big deal, but then John, in between sniffling and trying to compose himself, had managed to explain that if his dad spent any more money to help out with college than he already was, he'd be in debt. So Dave, being the awesome best friend that he was, had suggested John go stay with Bro. 

Bro and Dave had moved to Washington when Dave was 12, leaving behind their apartment in Texas so that Dave could go to a better school with his friends (who had coincidentally all gone to the same school except for him, to his dismay), but the minute Dave had graduated Bro moved back.

John had, initially, been very skeptical of this idea. His protests had started out as "I don't want to be a hassle" and ended as "Your brother creeps me out, dude, no!"  
He'd gone to stay with him anyway.  
Dave had very strong suspicions that something had gone down between them in the past 12 months.  
And by strong suspicions, he means, his brother sent him nude photos of John and John cried about it for a week and wouldn't speak to either of them.

Not that Dave really cared, because as far as sexuality went, he was a pretty open guy. He'd had to endure eighteen years of his brother's creepy puppet fetish and John's creepy Nic Cage fetish, so he figured they were perfect for each other anyway.

"N-no!" John stammered, and Dave could have laughed at how lame he still was, despite his claims that he had recently become a "completely tough man". "He certainly did not hold my hand, thank you! He didn't even come."

Dave nodded, face serious. "Stayed at home and looked after the kids."

"Dave!"

He laughed, looping an arm around his best friend's neck as he steered them both back in the direction of his room. 

"So, how long are you in town for?" Dave asked, trying his best not to totally lose his cool and just geek out all over the place with excitement.  
"Just the one night," John said, sounding apologetic. "But you can totally come visit me when the semester's over! Bro kept your room the exact same."

Dave nodded, not bothering to make a point of informing John that he knew for a fact that the only reason his room was still the same was because John was sleeping in his brother's bed.

They rounded the corner and descended down the long corridor, each door painted the same murky grey. They stopped in front of Dave's, John still talking about how excited he was to be here after not seeing Dave for such a long time, and he didn't shut up until the door was open and they both noticed a rather conspicuous figure sitting on Dave's bed.

Now was the absolutely wrong time for Terezi to be in Dave's room.

She lay upside down on his bed, glasses slightly askew, controller in her hands. When she heard the door open, she started to say, "Hey, Dave, you're out of cherry popsicles agai-" but cut off, taking a rather delicate sniff at the air.

She sprang from the bed, tackling John to the ground, and licked a long, verticle stripe up his cheek. "Egbert, dog. You taste like stubble and misery. Trying your hand at being a grown up, or are you fucking a forty year old?"

John was alternating between laughing hysterically and trying to pry the smirking girl off of him, cheeks red again.

"Latter," Dave informed her, delighting in the savage grin that crossed her face. "And he's, what, thirty seven now?"

"Daaave," John whined, looking at his friend pathetically. Dave rolled his eyes, and moved to help pry Terezi off of him.

He wasn't at all surprised that she'd been in here. Being his best friend--or, best troll friend, he supposed, since John was his best friend--she'd long ago discovered a way of breaking in to his room when she needed to annoy the shit out of him, so he'd quickly learnt to just shut up when she wanted something and had given her a key.

"Hey, Terezi," John laughed, kind of breathy, wiping his face with a mildly disgusted grimace. "How are you?"

"I share a room with an obsessive compulsive disorder patient, how do you think I am?" Dave could practically taste the sarcasm in her words, and knew instantly that she was talking about Kanaya. Terezi flopped back on to his bed, unpausing her game.  
He frowned at her. "Dude, were you licking my screen again?"  
She waved him off, shushing him absently.

John put his hands on his hips kind of awkwardly, nodding towards Terezi and half-heartedly wishing he knew how to make his mouth turn in to a question mark for such occasions.  
Dave rolled his eyes and went to stand in front of the screen, barely flinching when Terezi groaned and threw her controller at him. "Dave, no. Why. I had a high score. You are so rude."

"Get out of my room."

"Um, wow, okay, that's not rude or anything. Just kick the blind girl out of your room, she doesn't have any feelings, only people with working eyesight have feelings-"

"Oh, my God, Terezi. John and I have catching up to do, you can mooch off of my games and internet connection tomorrow."

Terezi sighsed dramatically and stood up, lolling her head in Dave's direction. The predator-like fluidity of it immediately set John on edge, which wasn't really surprising. He didn't spend his high school years hanging out with trolls like Dave did; he spoke to them on occasions and only hung out with them if he was around Dave and that was what Dave was doing. For all Dave knew, John could be genuinely terrified that Terezi was about to kill him. 

"Fine, whatever. I'm actually here to deliver a message, though, I don't think that can wait until tomorrow."

Dave folded his arms casually, trying not to look too alert about the change in Terezi's usually flippant tone. "What message?"  
"The Dean came by before, and you were out, so I have been told to inform you that you're getting a roommate."  
Dave's face dropped in to a completely unironic frown. "What."  
Terezi snorted. "Oh, come on, you've gotten away with having a whole room to yourself for, like, a year now. Don't act surprised. They're getting a new student in and there aren't any spare rooms yet because he applied late, so they're putting him in with you."

Dave squeezed the bridge of his nose from under his shades, but shrugged it off nonetheless. "Alright. Yeah, whatever, cool. I've been getting a bit lonely, might be nice."

Terezi's grin turned all but wicked.

Dave had the sense that she wasn't done.

"Also, guess what?" She inquired.

Dave sighed. "What."

"He's a troll."

"Oh. Oh, what, seriously?" Dave's expression turned elated, a grin lighting up his face. "Why aren't they putting him in the south side of campus?"  
Terezi shrugged. "All full."  
"Wow. Do you know who it is?"  
Terezi shrugged again. "Nah, they didn't say. Fingers crossed it's someone cool, though."

Dave had to put a lot of work in to trying not to look as happy as he was. There was just something so comforting about the normality of the grey tones of skin colour, the familiar black hair and the varying oranges on horns. Something about troll's appearances reminded Dave of his highschool years, when he didn't fit in with the normal kids so he hung out with the trolls on campus. That was how he and Terezi had become best friends, and the memories were fond.

"Wow. Shit. Um, alright, thanks."

Terezi saluted him mockingly on her way out, but didn't say anything else as she shut the door behind her.

Dave turned to John. "So, I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say you bought at least one Nic Cage movie with you."

John just smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because in all the best AUs John Still loves Con Air and all is right with the world.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Karkat is hella pissed and Dave doesn't wear shirts very often.

Karkat shouldn't have been so nervous.  
  
But, he was.  
  
He shouldn't have been so anxious.  
  
And yet, here he was, standing out in the cold Chicago weather, fiddling with his too-long sleeves like he was about to go in to battle.  
Which he very may as well have been.  
  
It had taken him this long to even gather up the courage to sign up for college in the first place. He doesn't think he'd have gone through with it if it weren't for Gamzee's encouragement, or for the fact that their apartment always smelt like sopor and weed and he hated it.  
He needed a fresh start anyway, he'd told himself. If he stayed in one place too long he became bored and sad and then that thing happened all over again, that thing where his mind kind of caved in on itself and he started to think about that day four years ago, when he could have ended it all and didn't.  
  
Because of a person he'd very much not like to think about.  
  
With a final, submissive sigh, Karkat trudged towards the building, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets with a grim twist of his mouth.  
  
He was really, really, really fucking messed up. And he knew that. He knew perfectly well how messed up he was, and he was completely content with spending the rest of his pathetic existence trying to contradict that in any way possible.  
  
The building was significantly warmer, hot air blasting him in the face upon entry. He shivered, the good kind of shiver, and took his hands out of his pockets to rub them together, delighting in the warmth, careful not to start purring. It was a sensitive reaction, and he really didn't need anyone to clue in on the fact that it existed. He wasn't sure it was a troll thing. Sometimes, he wondered if it was a mutant thing. That'd be right, he thought.   
  
He was very quickly greeted by a cheery human woman with peach curls and brown eyes, who shook his hand, welcomed him to the college, and handed him his key.  
  
"Now, classes don't start 'till Monday, so you have a  _whole_ two days to settle in!" She chirped, and every one of her words sounded like something someone would say if they won a stupid human lottery. She was way too cheery for Karkat's taste, but he couldn't really bring himself to hate her a whole lot. She was just doing her job.  
  
"Am I gonna have a roommate?" He asked, even though he knew what the answer was even before she started bobbing her head up and down, curls bouncing with the movement.   
"Oh, yes, you're just in luck! We've got you in the human quarters, because, you did apply at a rather odd time of the year, but we've put you in with a very nice human boy, don't you worry. We think you'll do just fine with him! He gets excellent grades and he's majoring in, I think, music, so you shouldn't have too much trouble getting on with him."  
Karkat felt his stomach twist as soon as the word 'human' left her mouth. It wasn't that he had anything against humans-- he didn't  _really_ think that they were below him, that was usually all talk-- but from what he'd experienced all throughout high school, the majority of them weren't very kind in the way of aliens. And he just so happened to be a gogdamn alien immigrant.  
  
He didn't need help finding his room, but he let her lead the way anyway, smiling half-heartedly over the fact that she never shut up. Her colourful clothes stood out against the grey of the corridor, which was kind of nice, because it reminded Karkat of his own kind's skin colour and the colour of his familiar trollian text and he was put at ease, even if it was only by the tiniest fraction.  
  
She excused herself, gave a very formal goodbye, and then all but skipped back down in the direction they'd come, leaving Karkat with a suitcase and a key and nothing else. So, every belonging he had.  
  
He took a deep breath, trying to amp himself up. He didn't talk to himself aloud, no, because that was a stupid thing that immature grubs did, but he gave a pretty convincing pep talk to himself in his heads, which featured a lot of Troll Will Smith quotes and curse words.  
  
Finally, with a couple of bounces on his toes to rev him up just that little bit more, he shoved the key in its hole and unlocked the door. He didn't want to be too abrupt or too nervous, so he opened the door as if he was opening it to a friend's room, confident but respectful. Which was a bad idea, because that meant that he was quiet. And as his luck would have it, his roommate didn't hear him come in.  
  
Karkat caught sight of him and froze to the spot, more stationary than he'd ever been in his life, because, he quite literally could not move.  
The blonde head of hair first struck him as familiar, then the defined shoulder blades, curved milky-white back sprinkled with a helping of freckles, and,  _oh,_ he was only in his boxers.  
  
He had to gasp at that, because his mind then decided to give him the coherence he so dearly wanted in the form of reminding him just exactly who he was staring at and why they were so familiar.  
  
Dave started, probably not having expected any noise at the doorway, and began, before he fully saw Karkat, "Oh, you must be my new room.... oh, my god."  
  
The two stood facing each other like an old western movie, Karkat's jaw hanging open wide enough to catch flies, Dave's brows raised behind his ever-present obnoxious aviators. Eyes bugging out of his skull, Karkat groped his mind desperately for words, but to no avail, because none came, and he was left stammering and stuttering like a complete idiot.  
  
"I. Y- uh. We.. uh-uhm. Dave."  
  
Dave composed himself by the tiniest measure, swallowing thickly and nodding. "Karkat."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Been a while."  
  
"Uh. Yeah. What uh. What brings you to my dorm room?"  
  
Karkat raised his brows now, thinking that Dave might be accusing him of something. "Uh."  
  
"You're not stalking me now, are you?"  
  
And just like that, all of Karkat's composure came back, and he returned to his normal, angry self; his normal, angry self who entirely loathed Dave Strider. "Of c0urse not, you insolent shitstain. I attend this school now, it's not my fault they put me in with a bulge-muncher like you."  
  
Dave continued to stare, expression not changing. It was just beginning to grow awkward, when Karkat heard movement at the back of the dorm.  
  
"Hey Dave, is it alright if I borrow a towel to-"  
  
Who else but John stopped in the doorway, eyes bugging in his skull at the sight of Karkat standing there in the doorway.   
  
Oh, fuck.  
  
" _KARKAT?!_ "   
  
Oh, all the fucks in the world, why did John have to be here.  
  
He rushed forward at once, a dopey grin seeming carved in to his face as he gawked at the troll like one would an animal in a zoo. "Wow! It's been so long since I saw you, like. Wow. Where've you been!"  
  
Karkat's shoulders slumped in defeat when John wrapped an arm around them. They hadn't even been  _that_ close in high school. They'd just. Gone to the movies a few times, and then about a month after  _that_ day he and John and Gamzee and Jade had all been hanging out and he'd sort of gotten high and told everyone that he had a crush on Dave Strider and then he'd cried like a grub in front of all of them and made them swear never to tell anyone.  
  
Yeah.  
  
"Nowhere special," He muttered, trying to shrug the brunette's arm off of him in the least offensive way possible.   
  
"Well, it's great to see you! But man, it really sucks that I have to leave today. We could have all hung out or something! Are you here with Gamzee? Oh, wait! Terezi goes here, doesn't she? Are you visiting her?"  
  
Karkat tried his best to contain as little ferocity as possible in his snarl when it ripped from his grimacing mouth, but it must have still sounded pretty scary because John flinched a bit and Dave's lips twitched. "No, fuckass, I'm going to be living here now. I apologize for wanting an education for once in my pathetic prolonged life." He was referring to The Cure, which was an injection all trolls got upon moving to earth that fixed them so that they had the same lifespan as a human. Great for low bloods, excellent for mutants like Karkat, not so good for the high bloods who had no choice but to come here to escape the war and violence.   
  
"Aw, wait, seriously? Dude, that's so cool!" John paused to gasp, looking between Karkat and Dave. "Oh my God! You're gonna be sharing a room with Dave, aren't you?  _Shit._ That's like. Wow. That's like destiny. Or something. Oh man, I can't believe it."  
  
 _Yeah,_ Karkat thought, stiffening his shoulders some more when he made eye contact (or, eye to shade contact) with Dave from across the room.  _I can't believe it either._  
  
John finally shut up and insisted he needed a shower before he left, to which Dave replied by offering him a towel to borrow. John thanked him and left for the bathroom, leaving Karkat and Dave alone in the nearly silence of the dorm room.  
  
Karkat scanned the room, doing nothing to hide the disgust from his face at the strewn socks on the floor, the empty chinese takeout boxes, cans of soda, musical instruments propped against a cluttered desk. This seemed to be the only room, bar the bathroom that John had just disappeared in to. The kitchen was a part of it, and the TV settled against the floor must have been a living room.  
  
Karkat looked up at Dave. "Where's the recuperacoon?"  
  
Dave arched a delicate eyebrow. "You don't get a recuperacoon here."  
  
"Oh." That was okay. He'd slept without one before. When he first moved to Earth, they hadn't been able to ship any yet, so he slept in a human bed for his first year and got used to it, even got used to the nightmares that eventually became less regular. He had trouble sleeping alone for the first part of it, so made Kankri sleep with him, but now he'd been okay. By all human standards of the new aging process he had to become familiar with, he was a big boy now. "Where's the other bed, then?"  
  
Dave didn't flinch. "There is no other bed."  
  
Karkat looked to the double bed, pressed against the wall adjacent to the television. Then back to Dave. Then in between the two again. He took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes. "You are out of your fucking pathetic human mind if you think that I am going to share a bed with you."  
  
Dave smirked, but Karkat didn't have time to completely lose his shit at him because John reappeared after that, hair damp.  
  
Dave broke eye contact (well, he assumed so. Damn those shades!) with Karkat and nodded at John. "That was fast."  
  
John grinned and wiggled his fingers. "Magic."  
  
He had to go then, and Dave got dressed and showed him out the door, closing it behind the two of them. Leaving Karkat alone.  
  
With a sigh to rival Troll Cameron Diaz's awesome dramatic acting skills, Karkat got to unpacking. He left his suitcase a suitable distance from the end of the bed so that it looked neat and was in no danger of tripping someone. The only thing that he needed to take out was the framed picture he brought with him, the only item that held any emotional significance with the troll. He wasn't really one for sentiments, but the picture was of one of the only fond memories he had of high school, when, for just a moment, everything had seemed happy and great and wonderful and in the same moment he hadn't thought of suicide or how pathetic he and everyone around him was.  
  
The picture was taken about half a year before his suicide attempt, at one of those human Hallow's festivals, or whatever they were called, he still didn't know, when Gamzee had practically had to drag him to a party he wanted to go to.   
  
There were a total of sixteen of them in the photo, because they'd all split off and ended up in an upstairs bedroom with a camera and a bottle. They were all sort of misfits, even though a couple of them were popular, and Karkat had, at the time, been comfortable because he definitely knew everyone in the room.  
  
Terezi was dressed in a bright red devil costume to match her eyes, short dress and horns painted, tongue poking out from between her sharp teeth. Her face was squished against Karkat's, who was actually smiling a genuine smile. On his other side was Jade, who he actually rather adored at that point and this point still, dressed as a barkbeast and squishing his other cheek. Behind him, you could just see everyone else, from Aradia, who had her eyes crossed and her arm slung around Sollux's neck, his lips at her cheek, to Eridan and Feferi, who had Eridan's scarf slung around the both of them. Dave was wearing a dress, which Karkat actually remembered  _laughing_ about, and was seated across Rose's lap, who was laughing, cringing in to her hand at the ridiculous duck-lipped face he was pulling. Tavros was dressed as Pupa Pan, not surprisingly, and holding hands with his then-new-boyfriend Gamzee. John had tried to recreate Nicolas Cage in costume, so of course Vriska was all over him, holding two fingers up behind Terezi's head from where she sat with an arm wrapped tight around John's shoulders. Nepeta was sitting on Equius's shoulders, bending down so that she was in the frame of the camera, grinning ridiculously, and Kanaya was laughing hysterically, seated in between Equius and Nepeta, and Rose and Dave. The bottle on the floor from their unfinished game of spin the bottle (Karkat had kissed Terezi twice and then Nepeta once), and all Karkat could remember when he was looking at the photo was how happy he'd been.  
  
He set the frame down next to the bed, a respectable distance from Dave's belongings, and then sat down himself, folding his hands in his lap and sighing.  
  
He did not have feelings for Dave. He could assure anyone of this. Those were long gone with his highschool days, and so were his unhappy thoughts, and he missed Gamzee he missed Gamzee so much he missed their apartment and now he was going to cry, great.  
He gave up with a pathetic half sob, but only cried for about half a minute before he forced himself to stop, scared Dave would find him like this and make fun of him for the rest of his life.  
  
He went and fished his phone from his bag, opening up a chat window with Gamzee immediately, holding back hiccups that threatened to turn to cries.  
  
CG: GAMZEE.  
TC: wHoA, hEy KaRbRo :o)  
TG: yOu mOtHeRfUcKiNg MisSiNg Me YeT bRoThEr?  
CG: OF COURSE NOT.  
CG: I AM SO HAPPY TO BE AWAY FROM THAT SHITHOLE OF AN APARTMENT, AND MY SHITHOLE OF A MOIRAIL, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.  
CG: I AM ACTUALLY WEEPING WITH JOY RIGHT NOW.  
CG: HA HA HA.  
CG: SEE, LAUGHING TOO.  
CG: EVERYTHING'S DANDY.  
TC: i MiSs yOu ToO  
CG: FUCK.  
CG: I WANT TO COME HOME.  
TC: bRoThEr,  
TC: yOu KnOw On AnY oThEr oCcAsSiOn I'd Be MoThErFuCkInG gLaD tO tElL yOuR aSs To AlL uP AnD cOmE rIgHt ThE mOtHeRfUcK bAcK hOmE  
TC: bUt yOu kNoW yOu GoTtA dO tHiS  
TC: aLl SpReAdInG yOuR wInGs AnD sHiT  
CG: I DON'T WANT TO SPREAD MY WINGS, ASSCLOWN.  
CG: I WANT TO COME HOME.  
CG: I MISS OUR APARTMENT.  
CG: AND I HATE IT HERE.  
CG: GUESS WHO I'M FUCKING SHARING A ROOM WITH.  
CG: NO SERIOUSLY, YOU HAVE TO FUCKING GUESS.  
CG: WE ARE GOING TO PLAY A GAME OF TRIVIA WITH THE HILARIOUSLY PATHETIC STORY OF MY FUCKING LIFE.  
TC: oH sHiT dOg, I dOnT kNoW  
TC: sOlLuX?  
CG: DAVE. FUCKING. STRIDER.  
TC: wHaT  
TC: nO  
TC: oKaY i ChAnGeD mY mInD, yOu HaVe To MoThErFuCkInG cOmE hOmE rIgHt NoW  
CG: GAMZEE..  
TC: i DoNt TrUsT tHaT lItTle ExCuSe FoR a MoThErFuCkInG aSs PiE  
TC: yOu HaVe To CoMe HoMe  
CG: NO. I.  
CG: I GUESS YOU'RE KIND OF RIGHT.  
CG: I'M BEING COMPLETELY STUPID.  
CG: OR, PAST ME IS BEING COMPLETELY STUPID.  
CG: I REALLY DO NEED TO DO THIS.  
CG: I'LL STAY.  
TC: bUt No  
CG: BUT YES.  
TC: i WaNt YoU tO cOmE hOmE  
CG: NO, YOU WANT ME AWAY FROM YOUR FUCKING KISME-CRUSH OR WHATEVER THE FUCK HE IS.  
TC: eW  
TC: tHaT iS  
TC: rEaLlY mOtHeRfUcKiNg InSuLtInG  
TC: i PlAtOnIc HaTe HiM sO mUcH, iT'd Be A mIrAcLe If I cOuLd EvEn LoOk HiM iN tHe EyE wItHoUt WaNtInG tO pLaToNiC pUnCh HiM iN tHe FaCe, ThErE's NoThInG bLaCk ThErE  
CG: TROLL ROMANCE SURE IS WEIRD.  
TC: <>  
TC: :o)  
CG: YEAH, <> TO YOU TOO.  
CG: I GUESS.  
CG: I'LL SEE YOU SOMETIME SOON?  
TC: bE mOtHeRfUcKiNg CaReFuL wOn'T yOu BrOtHeR?  
CG: YEAH.  
CG: I WILL.  
CG: SEE YOU, GAMZEE.  
  
\--carcinoGenticist ceased pestering terminallyCapricious--  
  
Karkat sighed, switching his phone off and leaving it next to the bed with his photo frame. He blinked tired eyes, wishing he'd at least thought to sleep on the plane ride over, or at least the taxi trip from the airport. He also wished he'd had dinner, but he was too tired to care enough about the rumble of his stomach, and suddenly, he was very lonely and very exhausted and fighting a dull sleepiness that he knew meant he would be too tired to fall asleep.   
  
He'd always had trouble sleeping alone, especially without a recuperacoon.  
  
He was just about ready to fall back on to the bed, passed out, when the door opened and startled him to a jolting awake.  
  
Dave gave him an amused look, closing the door behind him. "Whoa, sorry bro, didn't mean to scare you. You tired?"  
  
Karkat was too tired to shout some sarcastic remark back at him, so he nodded, looking sad and exhausted like he was.  
  
"Yeah, me too." He came over and urged Karkat off of the bed, pulling the covers back when they were free. "Think I'm gonna head to bed. You're free to, um, watch TV or whatever, if you can't get to sleep or you don't wanna be in the same bed as me. The laptop on the sofa has internet, but the connection's really shitty because I use my neighbour's."  
  
Karkat nodded and blinked sleepily, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. He barely registered that he was staring at Dave, or rather, that Dave could see him, because then Dave started to undress.  
  
He pulled first his shirt off, revealing his lovely, slightly muscular back again, shoulders rolling to compensate for whatever tension had built up in them, and then he unbuttoned his pants, sliding those off too, until he was left in just his shades and boxers and a raised eyebrow, and Karkat realised that Dave was staring right back and dropped his gaze, cheeks warming.  
  
"Wanna take a picture there, Kit Kat?"  
  
"Don't call me Kit Kat," He managed to growl through his exhaustion, eyes drooping again from the heaviness imposed on casting them downwards. "Do you seriously wear your shades to bed?"  
  
Dave started to climb under the covers, rustling them noisily. "Nah, I'll take 'em off once the lights are out."  
  
Karkat didn't flinch. "Why."  
  
Dave shrugged. "They're hella sensitive to light man, like wow. These sick peepers are definitely not ready to handle the harsh onslought of dim lamplight in this room, I tell you."  
  
Karkat ignored Dave's stupid explanation and began to climb in to bed himself, as far away from Dave and as on the edge as possible, shoulder stiff.  
"Whatever," He muttered, curling up on his side in a fetal position.  
  
Dave chuckled, and even though Karkat's eyes closed after that, he heard the click of the lamp being shut off and sighed in contentment, silent as he could.  
  
"Night, Karkitty," Dave drawled, voice smug from across the bed.  
  
Karkat didn't answer, already slipping off in to a deep sleep.  
  
He hoped that he didn't have any nightmares.  
  
He also hoped that he didn't still cling to shit, like when he was little.  
  
He did not have feelings for Dave. He reminded himself of this. Twice. And then he thought that Dave was in nothing but his boxers, and he had to tell himself three times again because for half a moment he wasn't sure.  
  
But he didn't. It was kind of a plain and simple conclusion to draw. The feelings had died and that was that, done.  
  
Karkat fell asleep quickly and did not wake once through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In times like these I reach out to the Gods and whisper "why. why do i not know how to change the font and colour."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A proposition is laid on the table.

Dave Strider had never quite woken so gloriously in his entire life.

He first woke subtly, half-consciously aware that there was something warm attached to him.  
Then he woke fully, warm and comfortable, and realized that something was Karkat.

Two nubby little horns peaked from a black tangle of hair to greet him, and four small, grey limbs were wrapped around him. Karkat was quite literally clinging to him. His breathing was shallow and relaxed, signalling that he was probably sleeping still. He was warm and pressed against Dave and- oh. The noises he was making became clearer, and what Dave had first thought was a hitch in his breath was now rather obviously a purr. Karkat was purring. Dave felt his stomach do an advanced pirouette trick and his heart picked up at double the pace.

God, he had missed him so much.

He'd never, ever, ever admit it in his whole life, but yeah, he'd missed Karkat a hell of a lot. Since that day, Karkat wouldn't even be in the same room as him, letalone talk to him, so it had been all Dave could do to ask around and follow Karkat sometimes to make sure that he was alright. And he may or may not have gotten Sollux to hack his computer and monitor his browsing history and trollian logs.

He wasn't stalking him.

Honest.

He'd just been so worried, and Karkat wouldn't talk to him, and he'd really, really liked him back then (he still did, who was he kidding) and he hadn't been sure if he wanted to slap him for ignoring him or kiss him really hard like he did on the pier, except with less tears and uncoordinated drooling.

The last three years of high school had been the worst for Dave.

On top of nursing a very embarrassing, very obvious crush that both Terezi and John had figured out on their own, he started getting thrown around a bit more, made fun of for his glasses and for being a member of the school music club and for carrying his "stupid comics" around everywhere with him.

Terezi always defended him, though, getting right in people's faces to inform them that the comics were cool and Dave was awesome and they needed to leave him the fuck alone before she ripped their heads off.  
Being a troll, this scared the majority of human kids away, but still none of them would hang out with him.  
So he became friends with the trolls, hung out with them.  
He didn't mind.  
He got to talk about Karkat because they knew Karkat, and he liked talking about Karkat.

John practically lived at Dave's house and always played Mario Kart with him and his big brother, who was a lot more sentimental and supportive than he looked, and Jade took him to the movies a lot and Rose and her girlfriend were always offering to play match maker and find Dave someone, so he couldn't really be sad. He didn't have much cause to.

He became alright friends with all of the trolls, minus two or three he didn't really mix well with, better friends with Sollux and best friends with Terezi. Who, at the time, had also had a crush on Karkat.

Well, she'd been flushed for him, but apparently it was the same thing, so of course they ate bucketloads of ice cream and watched bad indie romance films and whined about how much they hated Karkat for being great.

By the time senior year rolled around, they were kind of sort of dating. They hadn't done anything yet until one night they came home from a trip to the movies with everyone and Terezi asked Dave if he wanted to have sex, and he agreed. They managed to kiss once and get all of their clothes off before laughing hysterically at each other. They didn't have sex after that, and put their clothes back on, agreeing to just stay friends. They didn't talk about Karkat anymore.

By the time they graduated and everyone started looking in to colleges, Dave had pretty much accepted that his crush was an unrequited one that he would need to forget about, so he did. He and Terezi and Sollux and Kanaya all applied for the same college, and got in. John went to live with Bro. And Karkat disappeared.

In his present moment, Dave didn't know what to do, heart swelling so violently that he wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but maybe it had to do with wrenching the boy in his arms up to lips level.

He didn't get the chance to do so, though, before Karkat stirred and Dave pretended to be asleep.

Karkat sounded like he was waking groggily. He groaned, paused, and then pulled himself off of Dave, muttering something incoherent before rising from the bed. Dave waited until the dorm door closed behind him to sit up and put his shades back on.

He shook his head, feeling stupid for just now. Unrequited feelings were unrequited feelings, he guessed, and even if he couldn't make them fully go the fuck away, he sure as hell could pretend that they weren't there.

So, getting dressed and busying himself with tuning his guitar, that's what he did.

Karkat didn't return for another hour, but when he did he was slouching, hands in pockets, and didn't look up when he pushed through the door.

"You okay?" Dave asked, but his gaze was only off of his guitar long enough to sneak a glance, so to Karkat, it looked like he hadn't even looked up at his entrance.

His sigh was audible, and he probably thought that Dave couldn't see the genuinely upset expression that crossed his face, but he did. "Yeah. Just went to say hi to Terezi. She seemed pretty pleased to have me here. Then she decided to let me know that Sollux and Kanaya were here as well, and as you can imagine that went fucking swimmingly."

"Sollux mad?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he was. Really fucking. Mad at me. For disappearing, I guess."

Dave nodded, not wanting to pry but wanting to know everything. "Why did you disappear, again?"

Karkat's gaze turned hard and cruel, and he looked to the blonde boy immediately, teeth bared. "None of your fucking business, fuckass! I had shit to do."

Dave arched an eyebrow, fingers stilling on the pegs of his guitar. "Shit, huh. Like, hanging out with Gamzee all day shit?"

Karkat's eyes widened, scandalous. "How did you-"

"Rose told me," Dave offered immediately, going back to his guitar. "Said you told her right before you left. Like. Whatever. Didn't tell anyone else."

"Because it was no one else's fucking business!" Karkat snapped.

Dave acted like he didn't even hear him, and that's probably what pissed him off the most.

"Have you eaten yet?"

"I hate you so much!"

Dave glanced up, fluttering his eyelashes even though Karkat might not even be able to make the gesture out through his shades. "Ooh, Mr Vantas. You know you have to take a lady out to dinner first before you try to blackrom seduce her."

"I'm not trying to blackrom seduce anybody!" Karkat defended, stomping straight past Dave and to his suitcase, fishing around violently.

Dave spun his chair slowly, guitar still seated across his lap, to watch Karkat amusedly. "What are you looking for, exactly?"

"My money!" Karkat spat, turning his head to shoot Dave a fast glare. "I am hungry, not that it's any of your business. I'm gonna buy myself lunch."

Dave shook his head, standing to help Karkat to his feet; or rather force him, he did look kind of bewildered and pissed.  
"Nah, don't worry about it. I'll pay. My treat. I need to take you out anyway, catch up."

Karkat continued to glare, and Dave finally dropped his impassive coolkids look, a tired expression washing over his face for a second. "Look, I know you hate me-"

"Platoni-"

"Platonic hate me, whatever," Dave threw in. Troll romance sure was weird. "But I think you owe me the humour of just one lunch, don't you?"

Karkat's eyes widened, scandalized. "I don't owe you shit!"

Dave raised on eyebrow; a familiar habit for him. "Kar, I know we weren't the best of friends. But you didn't talk to me for three years and then you disappeared. Without even saying goodbye. One lunch wouldn't hurt, y'know?"

Karkat could only hold his glare for so long before he gave up with an outrageously vehement sigh. "Alright," He said, finally. "Yeah, fine."

Dave stifled a smirk, standing to carefully place his guitar back in its place. "Sweet. Let's go, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha i hate tenses


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat remembers some stuff and Dave is a teasing shitwad.

Karkat couldn't believe he was doing this.  
  
Every plausible part of him said that is was dumb and it was wrong, to be giving in to Dave so easily.   
He hated him. He hated doing what he said. And yet, that was exactly what he was doing.  
  
"Lunch" apparently meant the cafeteria, which put Karkat at a little bit of ease. Dave paid despite all protests, so Karkat ordered the cheapest looking food on the menu. Apparently, the cafeteria was the only section of the school that both humans and trolls shared, though it was divided in to two sections. Dave ordered some vaguely greasy looking human food, and then they sat together at an empty table and ate in silence.  
  
It wasn't  _particularly_ awkward, but it wasn't fun either, and while Karkat was busy wishing he was somewhere else, Dave was busy looking like he was trying to think of something to say, twisting his mouth thoughtfully every now and then, and Karkat kind of wished he could see his eyes.  
  
"So I had the fucking lunch," Karkat said finally, crossing his arms. "Will you please kindly leave me the fuck alone now?"  
Dave pursed his lips for a moment. "Well, no," He said finally. "We share a room. That's kind of impossible."  
"You know what I fucking mean," Karkat was glaring now. "I didn't ask to be put in the same room as you. All I want is to be left alone and to get through school without entertaining any fucking stupid human courtesies of your dumb 'friendship', okay?"  
Dave nodded. "Okay. Did you know you purr like a cat in your sleep?"  
  
"FOR FUCK'S SAKES DAVE I AM NOT ONE OF YOUR WORTHLESS HUMAN MEOW BEASTS DON'T COMPARE ME TO ONE YOU IGNORANT SHITSNIFFER WHAT I DO IN MY SLEEP IS COMPLETELY INVOLUNTARY AND NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS." Karkat raised his voice to accompany the growing hotness of his face.  
  
Dave barely reacted to the volume of his voice. "No, like. You're cute."  
  
Karkat stood up so fast that his chair flew a foot or so backwards, not caring if he was causing a scene when he stomped all the way through the cafeteria and back to the dorm room.  
He didn't have to look back to check if Dave was following or not, because he could hear him, close but with a somewhat respectable amount of distance. He wanted to pretend that he didn't already have an image forming in his mind of what that might look like, hands shoved in to his pockets like Karkat definitely didn't know was habit for him, eyes trained on the back of Karkat's heads even though he wouldn't be able to see them through those obnoxious shades, deadpan expression only accentuating the fact that he was trying way to hard to act like he didn't care.  
  
Karkat wasn't sure what he could take from the fact that he could literally read Strider like a book.  
  
He closed the dorm door tightly behind him, well aware of the fact that Dave was only trailing a few steps behind. As expected, it swung open again almost instantly, not aggressively, and Karkat spun to face the straight-faced blonde in front of him.  
  
"Would you mind not fucking following me, fuckwit?!"  
  
Dave didn't flinch. "You sure do say fuck a lot, Karkitten."  
  
Karkat threw his hands up, exasperated, baring his teeth shamelessly at the ignorant shitwad that stood before him. "You are  _such_ an asshole! Why do you feel it necessary to harass me every single moment of your pathetic shitstain life?! Surely you have better things to do be doing, maybe things that  _don't involve making my every minute a pain in the fucking spinal crevice._ "  
  
He finished, breathing hard to dramatically stress how seriously done he was with Dave's shit.  
Dave was silent for a good minute, expression giving away nothing of what he might be feeling. After what felt like an excruciatingly long time, he deadpanned, "You know, if you keep glowering at me like that, you're gonna give yourself worry lines."  
  
Karkat didn't even look over his shoulder as he stormed away and slammed the bathroom door closed behind him.  
  
After spending what he thought was a reasonable amount of time half-standing hunched against the back of the door, head in his hands and fingers raking and pulling at his hair like it had personally wronged him, he gave up with a sigh and began to strip from his clothes, double checking that the door was locked for reasons he didn't feel like mulling over, and then turned on the shower, waiting impatiently for it to warm to the desired temperature.  
  
He quickly let the water wash his stress and worry away, rolling his shoulders as the joints relaxed and loosened respectively. He couldn't deny the soft hum that rumbled somewhere in the back of his throat when he settled in to the warmth; hey, it wasn't his fault that the water temperature just happened to be absolutely perfect.  
  
It only briefly occurred to him that he hadn't brought his own toiletries in, and grimaced when he reluctantly reached for the worn bar of soap already waiting on the faded white bars of the shower rack, bits of silver showing through where the paint had chipped. The soap smelled foreign, faintly sweet--was that seriously lilacs he was smelling?--and as much as he pretended otherwise, he couldn't deny that he immediately related the smell to Dave. The soap must have been held partially responsible for his scent, and thinking back--both to four years ago and to last night, when they had lay side by side in such close proximity that Karkat could hear him breathing--he could definitely relate the sweet scent of soap to Dave. Of course, and Karkat was definitely only aware of this because he had no choice but to smell Dave, what with the close quarters they were suddenly living in, he did have his own natural scent, too, which accompanied the soap effortlessly. He smelt... kind of sharp, like whatever afershave and cologne he used accompanied with the musky, natural scent of sweat that clung lightly to his skin by default, laced with only the faintest of soft, sweet scents. Karkat shook his head, splaying water along the clear glass of the shower door.  
  
He needed to clear his head. There was definitely nothing attractive about the smell, or anything, and while it wasn't particularly girly it was still dumb like the rest of him. Karkat nodded his head, even though there was no one there to convince but himself. Yeah, the way he smelt was just another thing he could hate about Dave. He didn't need to worry.  
  
Still, he found himself shaking his head despite himself when he turned the shower off, borrowing one of Dave's three towels (seriously, what the hell) and mentally daring him to say something.  
  
He towelled his hair off and then wrapped it around his waist, and-- _fuck._  
He first swore internally, and then out loud, "Fucking damn it shit fuck", and after another five minutes of standing around in the steamy air of the bathroom, he decided that he was too close to suffocating to risk staying in there naked all day, so he did what any reasonably brave guy would do and sucked it up, clung to his pride like it was the last item he held dear to his heart, and exited the bathroom.  
  
Dave was sitting on the bed, or rather laying, absentmindedly stringing series of unintelligible notes on his guitar as he stared up at the ceiling. They were broken, like pieces randomly selected from songs, each starting its own melody with promise of more and then slipping away to silence, made rougher by the slide of the tips of his fingers on rough cords, and the occasional muttered swear when he fucked a bit up and had to re tune his guitar.   
  
Karkat realized that he was staring right about the time Dave did. He didn't look up, but he said, "You look nice in beige."  
  
He was of course referring to the towel,  _his_ towel, and Karkat ignored the girlish colour of his cheeks and busied himself with holding his towel up and rummaging through his still unpacked suitcase for his clothes.  
  
"I made room in the closet for you. Half the drawers are yours and you've got three hangers. I'm sure you're familiar with that, though," He threw in the last part when he started to sit up, perching himself on his elbows. Karkat chose to ignore the fact that he could definitely see some of the skin of Dave's stomach peeking from where his shirt rose out of the corner of his eye.  
"Familiar with what, asshole?" Karkat grumbled, piling a pair of jeans and a particularly loose-fitting grey shirt in to his arms. Comfortable; practical.  
Instead of deadpanning like he usually did when he was being an inconsiderate jerk, Dave flashed a surely swoon-inducing grin, and drawled, "Closets."  
  
Karkat almost dropped his fucking clothes.  
  
He composed himself, standing up straight with precise, if not jerky, movements.  _Keep cool stay calm don't let him get the upper hand he's obviously just being an asshole and poking fun at you for that thing that happened that one time four years ago it's totally fine now you have to say something back to him or he'll think he's won hey how about you make fun of him too since he did kind of kiss you first and-_  
  
"Couldn't be as familiar as you," Karkat snarked back, corner of his lip turning up in a sneer. "What, you must be an expert by now, right? Have you written a book on your findings?"  
  
Dave didn't back down in the least, the corner of his mouth turning up in to a smirk that rivaled the turn of Karkat's own lips and completely mirrored it back to him, though with surely different purposes, "Nah. I was never a fan of closets. Wear your sexuality on your sleeve, that's what I always say. I had shirt printed out with the big red words 'I'M A FLAMING COCK SUCKER', and then if you look right down the bottom, in small print, you can just make out 'and so is my buddy karkat'."  
  
"I don't suck anyone's cock!" Karkat snapped back before he could help himself, cheeks catching fire as soon as he saw the grin that crossed Dave's face, like he'd planned for Karkat to react this way all along. Karkat grumbled absently to himself as he turned his back on Dave, hurrying back to the bathroom with his clothes still in a bundle.   
  
"My, you have such a fine back, kitty cat."  
  
Karkat flipped him off right before the door closed.  
  
Again, he blatantly realized that the thing in his chest that was hurting so much was both his physical and his rhetorical fucking heart, which was either swelling half its size like that fucking hairy green Earth Christmas character's did at the end of that movie that definitely did not make him tear up, or it was shrinking, and the latter seemed more plausible because it only gave him much more incentive to go out there and beat the living shit out of Dave-thinks-hes-such-a-clever-bastard-Strider.  
  
He dressed slowly, taking his time progressing layer through layer, first his boxers, then his pants, which he made no rush to button, then he slipped the loose fitting grey shirt over his head, reveling in the way it calmed him down almost instantly. He felt much more comfortable in clothes that were too big for him, because that way nobody could make out his body shape, the way his nonexistent muscles curved or the way his ribs stuck out in just that slight way. He hated it. As much as he told himself and others that he didn't hate it, he did, he hated it so much and it was only times like these, when he could relax in to a comfortable slouch and not have to worry about the gross way his body was folding, that he felt comfortable enough to even be around others.  
  
Coincidentally, the last time he had dressed this slowly, given his body this much thought (because there had been a day when he had looked in the mirror and promised himself that he just wouldn't look anymore) had also involved Dave, the memory tainted a bit because he had earlier gotten high with Gamzee and was only just starting to emerge back to the awful, awful world of harsh sobriety when Dave found him.  
  
 _..._

_It was raining, which wasn't unusual for Washington this time of year, but it was a different kind of rain today, he thought. It was cold and harsh and anything but redreshing, the usual steady drum of cool water seemingly replaced by lash after lash of ice cold hatred, beating down on him just like he deserved._   
  
_He hadn't been home since Friday, and it was now Monday; everyone just assumed that he was staying at Gamzee's for a few days, and Gamzee just assumed that, when he had left four hours ago, he was going back home._   
  
_But he wasn't._   
  
_He wandered the streets aimlessly, not as scared as he should be by what was probably classified as "down town" for humans. The casual angry shouts and comical barkbeast noises only added to a stereotype he had to find funny. He'd spent his life roughing it, for lack of better wording, so this kind of thing didn't bother him._   
  
_Karkat was almost sure that he looked like a homeless kid of some sort. The dirty looks he got pretty much confirmed this; but he couldn't really blame them, not when he was soaked down to the bone and not wearing shoes. He didn't really remember where his shoes had gone, actually. He liked that, liked that he couldn't remember it, but that was only because the sopor was telling him he liked it, and he was absently scared that when he returned completely to sobriety he would remember where they went and there would be some terrible memory to accompany it, some encounter long forgotten from the time between when he had left Gamzee's house and when he had started wandering._   
  
_Hunger was another priority on his mind, and he was sure it showed on his face; another reason he looked poor. It wasn't that he didn't have the money for food. Even if he didn't, he had plenty of friends he could mooch off of; it was all too easy for him to have stayed at Gamzee's and eaten all of his food that didn't contain that vile drug he was high on. No, this was a different kind of hungry, because it was purposeful. He was starving himself, which wasn't unusual. Most of the time he was either too big or too skinny, and today was the former; every look in the mirror confirmed that yes, he really was piling on the pounds, wasn't he? So he just wasn't eating._   
  
_Angsty, sure. He'd call it cliqued if he were asked, and he faintly realized that this had to be half the plot to one of those angsty Earth movies he'd watched. Well, he'd watched it because he thought there was going to be comedy to it, but it had ended up being something like some poor Earth girl thinks she's too fat for her boyfriend so she created a suicide pact with her best friend. Karkat didn't know what happened to her, because halfway through the movie it hadn't gotten funny yet and he'd felt a little sick watching it so he turned it off._   
  
_"Karkat?"_   
  
_He stopped in his tracks, head whipping around in the direction of the voice, which he was a little unsure of. Ten seconds later he thought he was hallucinating and started to really worry about just how much sopor Gamzee had given him, but then he saw a figure emerging just a couple of meters away. Hungry and tired and only half-sober, it took him until Dave was only a foot away to recognize him, and when he did, he stumbled a great length backwards, eyes snapping wide. "Wow, that the fuck, Strider. You think you can just sneak up on people like that? I could go to the cops for that kind of abrasive behaviour, shitstick."_   
  
_"Where are your shoes?"_   
  
_Karkat looked down at his feet, as if he'd totally forgotten. Then back at Dave, who was more concerned than he had ever seen the stupid, impassive blonde, "None of your business nooksniffer. Fuck off."_   
  
_Dave stepped towards him anyway. Karkat stepped back. Dave took another step, shaking his head like Karkat was some child. Karkat didn't step back this time, and he didn't stop Dave when he tilted his chin up to look cautiously at him. From this close, Karkat could just make out the movement of his eyes, though the colour was beyond him. He thought it might be something dark--brown maybe?--but it was undetectable, and anyway, Dave was speaking again, "Something happen at home?"_   
  
_Karkat wrenched his chin out of Dave's grip, baring his teeth like a stray cat. "You... you fuck off. No, nothing happened at home, not that it would be any of your business if it did. I'm fine. Leave me alone."_   
  
_Dave sighed, and Karkat thought that movement he just caught might have been him rolling his eyes. "It's raining. If you're not gonna tell me what the matter is, you might as well come inside. You look starving."_   
  
_Karkat's stomach growled obnoxiously, or it felt that way, because Dave didn't seem to hear it. Karkat struggled to break free of Dave's arms, but one of his hands caught on the end of his sleeve, holding him in place. Karkat stopped, realising that struggling was kind of useless at this point. Even if he wasn't exhausted and starving and hitting sobriety hard, he doubted he would be able to take Dave on and win. It might be close, but he doubted he could win. Dave came to school with sword scars on his arms sometimes. Once on his face._   
  
_"Dude, you might as well just come inside. You're gonna freeze."_   
  
_Karkat wanted to know why Dave even cared. Why he was helping him. He wasn't funny, he wasn't kind, he wasn't attractive or interesting or intelligent; he was awful company. Dave had nothing to gain out of this whatsoever, except maybe a few bite marks if he got too close._   
  
_Feeling partially at loss for words, Karkat blurted out, "Why?"_   
  
_"Why?" Dave quirked a single blonde eyebrow from behind his shades. "Well, when it gets very cold in Washington, and a lot of water has been evaporated in to the vast cloudy mess that we call a sky, the heavens open the fuck up and drench shoeless cuties like you and then-"_   
  
_"No, asshole, I mean why are you helping me," Karkat grumbled, narrowing his eyes at Dave._   
_Dave grinned, because obviously he knew what Karkat meant. "Because I care about you, idiot."_   
_"Why though?" Karkat found the words were kind of rushed, tongue feeling thick against his racing mind and pulse. "I mean, it's not like we're friends, and even if we were I'm not really worth helping and I don't even like you and I'm never nice to you so I don't see why you would be nice to me and-"_   
_He wondered for a second why he'd stopped talking, but then his brain caught up to him and it became apparent that there was a finger placed rather firmly against his mouth, sealing his lips shut. And Dave was shushing him._   
_"Shhhhh..." He drew the sound on for some time. "You talk way too much, Karkitten. Now. Come inside."_   
  
_As soon as the finger was removed, Karkat launched in to a string of obscenities, but he made no attempt to escape when Dave started to tow him in the direction of the sidewalk, which was safe from the rain in some parts. His swears finished with a very appropriate, "Fuck you! Don't call me that."_   
  
_Dave raised an eyebrow, and gave what Karkat could only call a sidelong glance. "Karkitten? Isn't that what Nepeta calls you?"_   
  
_Karkat felt his cheeks turn an obscene shade of candy red, desperately trying to stifle the blush even though he was perfectly safe on Earth; no one culled you for your blood colour here, which was nice. "How the. Fuck. How the fuck do you even know that."_   
_Dave snorted, looking smug. "What, you think you're the only one here cool enough to hang out with the infamous group of Alternian misfits? We chill sometimes. She talks about cats a lot. And you. She talks about you almost as much as she talks about cats. I think she has a crush on you."_   
_Karkat chose to ignore him, both because he knew that Nepeta had a silly crush on him and because he didn't exactly want to lose his shit again, which he was close to doing. They arrived at an apartment building after some time, paint peeling on the walls and graffiti scattered on the side. The rush of warm, if not slightly stale air that hit him upon the doors opening was so relieving that he had to close his eyes, breathing out a silent little sigh of contentment. He hadn't realized until now how cold he'd actually been. Dave's apartment was on the third floor and the elevator was broken. Dave didn't let go of his wrist once, but Karkat didn't pull it away, either._   
  
_Even though it kind of hurt._   
  
_Dave let him go as soon as the door was closed behind them, and made straight for the kitchen, Karkat shuffling awkwardly on his feet. He didn't know what to do. He really shouldn't have been there. For one, he was in Dave's apartment. If that wasn't enough incentive to leave then he didn't know what was. He also happened to be completely sober now, and cold, and tired, and starving. Which meant that he was vulnerable, which was a thing he did not ever want to be. Especially not in front of someone he had little to no trust and respect for._   
_Dave returned not a minute later, this time carrying a coat and sandwich. The whole apartment smelled like bread._   
  
_There were only a few moments, up to date, in Karkat's life, in which he was so completely shocked and horrified that he didn't know what to say. This happened to be one of those moments, because without so much as flinching, Dave walked right up to him and wrapped the jacket around his shoulders. He then handed him the sandwich, which was actually just two very thick pieces of bread stuck together with some really tempting looking butter. Human food, but generic enough that it wasn't very different to the kind of food that it was normal for Karkat to eat. He stared at it for the longest time, before finally shaking his head and looking back to Dave. "I'm not hungry," He deadpanned._   
  
_Dave's face fell in to a frown. His head tilted down to the bread, then back to Karkat's face. "Karkat," He said, sounding confused and just a little condescending. "You're starving."_   
  
_Karkat shoved the food back in Dave's hand, stepping back a large pace and narrowing his eyes. "Don't fucking tell me what I am," He hissed, fumbling backwards for the door. "I'd know if I was hungry, you ignorant nooksniffer."_   
_Dave made a dive for the door before Karkat got there, blocking his escape and offering the sandwich again. "We don't have any food in the cupboards," He said. His words were rushed. "I mean, we have stale Cheetos and taco shells and ramen noodles if you wanted any of those things. And we have mac and cheese but mac and cheese takes ages to make and I just thought that since I was baking bread it would be easy to give you some and. It's fresh. So. Please just eat it. You're obviously starving."_   
  
_Karkat blinked, not having expected the outburst that he received from the blonde. From what he'd seen of him, he was straight-faced, dead-pan, and a complete and total coolkid tool. The rushed nature of that messy speech had totally contradicted those earlier thoughts, though, and Karkat now found himself doublethinking everything he'd ever thought about Dave Strider._   
  
_His stomach growled._   
  
_He took the sandwich._   
  
_He narrowed his eyes at Dave and took a bite. "I could report this as a kidnapping, y'know," He said around his mouthful. The corner of Dave's mouth quirked up, and, satisfied, he stepped away from Karkat, giving him back his much-missed personal space._   
  
_"But you won't," He grinned._   
  
_Once he was finished with his sandwich, Dave went and retrieved him some clothes to change in to, which just so happened to be one of his shirts and a pair of his pants. He let Karkat take a hot shower and he took his time getting dressed. The shirt was big on him, as opposed to his own, which had previously been clinging to his skin from the rain. He sighed, comforted immediately, both in the fact that the clothes were warm and big and dry, and that they smelled nice. **Like Dave,** something told him, but he promptly ignored that because he might tear the fabric right off of his back if he gave too much thought to the source of the clothing._   
  
_Once he was fully dressed, and mildly back to himself again, he returned to Dave's living room, where he was waiting on the sofa. He didn't look like he had been relaxing, so he'd probably been waiting for Karkat. He wasn't sure how he felt about that._   
  
_"So..." Dave said, and Karkat was absolutely certain that he was making an effort to make things awkward. There was silence, and then Dave asked, "As far as my reward for saving such a fair damsel goes, I will accept nothing less than a kiss."_   
  
_Karkat slammed the apartment door on his way out._   
  
_He later gave the clothes to Rose, because she was the only one who saw Dave often that he was comfortable approaching, and told her to say thank you for him._

...  
  
Present Karkat shook himself free of the memory, feeling strange and heavy all over, like his skin was weighing him down.  
  
He tried to shake free of the feeling, but it stuck with him all day like a bad odor, even when he made it his number one priority to ignore Dave and left the room to visit Sollux, who was dicking around on his computer and blew him off almost immediately, casting him to the shadowy abyss of Terezi's room. She caught on right away to the fact that he was ignoring Dave and ordered him to go back to the room and make amends with him immediately.  
  
He didn't, he instead spent his time exploring campus as slowly as possible. After spending much of his day studying for the classes he was taking yesterday, which were creative writing and hospitality, he went back to Terezi's room because he had no money. He'd have to get a job, he guessed, because the only money he'd had in his pocket upon arriving here he'd spent on lunch, and he wasn't sure how comfortable he was stealing Dave's food.   
  
He didn't go back to the room until eleven thirty, because he was a coward. Dave was sleeping, just like he'd expected him to be. Karkat opened a window, even though it was cold, because he liked the sounds of the highway that drove past the school, and then he crawled in to bed, trying to keep his distance from his roommate.   
  
He really needed a job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really shit at updating and i'm really sorry but i was at a music festival for the past four days so i guess that's kind of my excuse. also school starts again in two days and afnrgntguinhosid how do you balance school and writing man idek.


	6. Chapter 6

"Karkles, I am giving you to the count of five to go and smooch Dave right on his face."

Karkat figured he'd probably be a little more offended by the comment if it hadn't been from Terezi. He was sitting on her bed, mouth open from being previously in the middle of some rant about god-knows-what, arms folded from the sudden accusation on her part. She was staring at him with those strangely animated, glassy red eyes, glasses abandoned haplessly on the nightstand along with her sense of privacy, thrown to the winds upon Karkat entering her room.

Yeah, he was being rude barging in like this, and oh hey, guess what? He gave zero shits, because if he had to look at Dave's obnoxious face one moment longer he was sure he'd brain himself.

"Terezi, fuck you," He came up with eventually, and he thought that she might have realised how dumb and weak the comeback was even before he did, judging by the creepy sharp-toothed grin she was sporting. 

"Well gee, I don't know if I hate you enough for  _that,_ " She snarked, and despite himself Karkat cracked a smile. He shook it off immediately of course, because despite her being blind, Terezi  _knew_ things, and if her grin meant anything, then yeah, she was quite aware of the stupid as all hell gooey melty effect she had on Karkat. It wasn't his fault. She was just a psychopath, and he had a soft spot for psychopaths. She and Gamzee were his two best friends in the entire world. Both psychos. Both terribly endearing.

She sighed, squeezed the bridge of her nose. It was almost comical, seeing her like this, worn out and sleepy and trying so hard to remain scary. "You're being really stupid about this whole thing," She accused, shaking her head and giving him one of those creepy empty stares. "It's really obvious that you're still honing some crazy feelings for the coolkid, and if you're not willing to admit that, then I'm not willing to be your sloppy-seconds-therapist. Get out of my room."

"What, fuck no," She was pushing him out of the room now, crawling out of bed and shoving him in the direction of her door. One red sock and one teal one, booty shorts. Terezi was a law student who roomed with a psychology student, i.e Kanaya, i.e She Who Was Never In Her Dorm. "Terezi come on, please." And there it was, he had hit rock bottom, given her his most innocent, pleading look. It looked like it was working for a moment, because she stopped pushing him, looked right at him, face softened. But then she shook out of whatever stupor she'd flown into and shoved him the rest of the way out, shaking her head. Her hair was slightly messy; she'd been sleeping when he came in half an hour ago. "Shit, Karkles, it's ten o'clock and I have class tomorrow. We can't all be fancy literature students like you."

"Creative wri-"

"Look, you're a cutie. Major. And on any other night, I'd be absolutely privledged to have a booty as cutie as yours in this here room of mine, but alas, I am tired, and have class really early. And I will not settle for being your sloppy seconds, oh no. It is  _unjust._ And I have some standards, mister, so you crawl your way back to your own room, get over whatever this dumb tsundere shit you have going on is, and make ammends with Dave. That, or bite your tongue like a big boy and go to sleep."

She slammed the door in his face.

Karkat sulked the whole way back to his room, where, of course, Dave was waiting on his- _their-_ bed, fiddling with his laptop- no doubt that turntables system he'd installed into it with Sollux's help the other day- with a slightly frustrated look on his face. He took one earphone out when Karkat came in, raised a perfectly delicate blonde eyebrow. "Where were you?"

Karkat wanted to punch him right in his stupid face.

"None of your business, Strider, I was out."

He didn't blink. "How is TZ, by the way? She hasn't been by here in at least, what? Two, three days? You must have scared her off."

Karkat flopped down on his side of the bed, as far away from Dave as possible. "Fuck you, I don't want to hear about your piss-poor excuse for a relationship that you and Terezi have had going on behind my back, I'm tired and I want to go to sleep."

"Relationship?" He could hear the eyebrow raise. He tried not to think how he had used to love that, how his stomach had done weird flipflops all through school and he had always had to excuse himself from the group to go sulk about it like the little bitch that he was. "Jealous, Karkitten? You have a thing for Terezi? Or-" He feigned a gasp, and, so suddenly that Karkat almost fell out of bed, pounced on him, turned his shoulders so that he was staring right into Dave's face, his mouth a comically wide O. "Do you have a thing for... _me?_ "

Karkat elbowed him in the ribs, satisifed with the noise that he made, and rolled the blonde off of him. He had been being overly sarcastic, probably fluttering those dumb eyelashes under those dumber shades, and Karkat was real fucking fed up with it. 

He could hear Dave laughing, a quiet chuckle under his breath. Something hard hit him in the back and he hissed involuntarily. 

"Care package," Dave said, going back to his laptop.

Karkat sat up reluctantly and pulled the small box into his lap. It already had a torn open side. "What the fuck, why is this open?" He asked, and Dave shrugged, but didn't look up from his laptop. Narrowed eyes, Karkat opened it the rest of the way anyway. It was from Gamzee. His first thought was how fast it had gotten to him, and immediately he had suspicions that the stupid clown asshole had driven all the way out here just to drop it off, only to drive all the way back home again. He wouldn't put it past him. There was a note inside, depicting not much else but the fact that Gamzee missed him, was proud of him, couldn't wait to see him again. It also mentioned that his family were proud of him. His 'family', which consisted of crabdad and a pseudo-brother he had been assigned upon migrating to Earth. (There had been lack of housing at first, so Kankri had come to live with them because he was the only one with the same blood colour and his own lusus had been killed shortly before his arrival. The asshole had grown on him, and he now called him a 'brother', which, the way he was using it, was more a human term than anything.)

Inside the care package was a little yellow packet of gummy grub candies, two of his favourite movies, a wad of cash and... two packets of sopor. Of fucking course.

He slid the package under the bed with a tiny sigh that was- to his mild disgust- more endearing than it was spiteful. He would have to pester him in the morning, tell him to say hi to Crabdad and Kankri and say thankyou. That asshole, always looking out for him. It was hard to hate his best friend sometimes.

He fell down on his pillow dramatically, and froze, concerned at the little squelching noise it made. He sat up again, reached under.

"Dave, what the fuck."

Dave looked up from his laptop screen and sighed. "Okay, you caught me."

Karkat threw the packet of sopor slime at him, face turning red. "You're damn straight I 'caught you', what the fuck, asshole? What, are you trying to get me high? Because newsflash, not only does that not work unless I'm injesting it, but-"

"No, no, shh, I wasn't, calm your space-tits. I was, um. Shit, this is kind of embarrassing. I. You get night terrors, okay? I noticed the first night you were here. You moan and groan and turn a lot in your sleep, and I looked it up, and apparently that sopor shit is meant to stop you guys from getting really violent nightmares, right? So I thought I'd put some under your pillow, you wouldn't notice, and you'd start sleeping better. It was really dumb, sorry."

Karkat blinked, speechless for the first time in a long time. "You. Huh?"

Dave scratched the back of his neck, looking genuinely awkward and shit, Karkat really didn't want to think about those stewing feelings in his stomach right now but he couldn't think about much else because the feelings were pretty prominent.

"I figured that clown-douche might have sent you some, so I went through your package. Again, sorry."

It was getting kind of hard to breathe. Dave was staring right at him, and, even with the shades in the way, it wasn't hard for Karkat to imagine what his eyes might look like. In that moment he was really, truly genuine, and it was taking Karkat by a hell of a lot of surprise. Eventually, he summoned up what dignity he could and cleared his throat, looking down and away from the human. "It's... fine, I guess. Just in future, don't look through my shit. And... thanks. I guess. For trying."

"No problem," Dave said, impassive, and went back to not giving a shit about anything.

God. Fucking. Damn it.

Karkat rolled back over and went right back to sleep.

He can't really blame himself for the thing he does when he's sleeping or half-asleep. He doesn't have as much of a guard up at those times, can't control the silly noises he makes and the things he says. It's why he clings to shit when he sleeps, too, why every day since he's started at this college- all eight of them- he's woken up attatched to Dave and had to pry himself off, embarrassed, and flee to take a shower before Dave said anything.

He woke up in the middle of the night twice, absently startled at the extreme lack of nightmares. The first time he woke up mid-purr, mildly embarrassed. Dave was next to him in bed, still on his laptop. They were staring at each other for two whole minutes before Karkat realised and went back to sleep. The second time, Dave was across the room fiddling with his turntables, headphones around his neck and looking really sincere. Their curtains were still open and some of the lights from outside were splayed across Dave's cheeks, a sliver of moonlight portrayed in his eyes. His shades were on top of his head, eyes bright red as always and skin as pale and as porcelain as Karkat remembered. He was tired, and it was late, and it was the first time since highschool that he allowed himself to think that Dave was genuinely beautiful. Dave noticed him staring, again, and gave this dumb little smirk for like a whole minute. It took Karkat said minute to realise that Dave was staring because, when he'd caught him staring, Karkat had murmured, "Come back to bed." Embarrassed, he rolled over and went back to sleep before Dave was even back in bed.

When he woke up the next morning, Dave was showering. He dressed as fast as possible and was out of the room before Dave was out of the bathroom, which was almost sort of an achievement. He hated to admit it, but yeah, that had been a pretty thoughtful thing for Dave to do. And damn, did it have some killer results. He hadn't slept that well in years.

His first class was psychology, which he was taking for research purposes. His favourite kinds of books were psychological romances, and anyway, he liked knowing things about people and the way that their brains worked. For his writing. He took the class twice a week and wasn't majoring in it.

He had the class with Kanaya and she let him sit with her. In between note taking and during discussion, they talked about how he was settling in to his first week and a bit of college and whether or not Kanaya missed Rose- she did. She said, with an all-too-knowing smirk, that she had suspicions her matesprit would be visiting her sometime soon. Karkat said he hoped so, and he did. He liked Rose, honestly. She was a bit of a smartass and way too much like Dave for his liking, but she made Kanaya happy and she was very, very kind when she wanted to be.

Karkat was looking forward to getting to do his usual, creative writing classes at the end of the day so much that he didn't even care when he saw Dave first thing in the cafeteria, sitting with his friends. He sat with Kanaya away from everybody else and made idle conversation while she texted. He would have been happy to stay that way, too, if she didn't look up and stop him after a short period of five minutes.

"Karkat, I am beggining to suspect that you are not just sitting with me because you enjoy my company."

He was offended. "What? Fuck, no, I promise. I love sitting with you Kanaya."

She made a slight hum of recognition and went back to texting. He tried to lean over. "Who're you texting?"

"Rose. Karkat, why do you not just go and sit with your friends?"

He folded his arms, slouching back in his seat. "Why don't you?" He dodged the question.

Kanaya didn't look up. "I prefer to sit alone."

He was pretty sure that that might have been a hint for him to fuck off, but he stayed, defiant. "Yeah, well, me too."

"Are you certain that it is not just because Dave is over there?"

Fuck, did the whole world have to know? "No, why the fuck would that insolent shit sniffer have anything to do with my life."

Kanaya looked up and arched a dainty little eyebrow. Elegant in everything that she did, she was like a mother to Karkat, if certainly not an upstanding role model. She said, "Well, for one, he is your roommate. Terezi and I are not the best of friends, but I will be the first to admit that she has some impact on my life. Of course, you and I both know that this is not what I was referring to. Your feelings for Dave are rather obvious, Karkat, I do hope that you are aware of that."

"What fucking feelings, I don't have fucking feelings," He grumbled, folding both of his arms. He made the mistake of glancing over at their table, where Dave was saying something obnoxious with this stupid little smirk on his face and the other two- Sollux and Terezi- laughed their asses off. Dave met his eye after a while, looked back to Sollux and said something. Sollux and Terezi both turned around and waved him over, and all of the blood rushed to his goddamn cheeks because fuck them.

He looked to Kanaya, desparate. She lookd mildly bored. "Go and sit with them," She said. "I am almost certain that you want to."

Karkat finally gave up, sighed, went to their table dragging his feet. He almost stopped halfway there, because of  _course_ it was a four seater table, and of  _course_ the only valid seat was next to Dave.

The conversation dropped for a moment upon his arrival at the table. He had just decided to stand back up and walk back to Kanaya's table when Dave said, "Karkat, you have to help us reach an agreement here man."

Before he could ask what they were on about, Sollux lunged forward, hand on the table. "No. No, he doethn't, becauthe the anthwer ith no."

"We don't know that. For all any of us know, it is completely possible to cry underwater."

"It is not! It is not possible to cry underwater, because you're surrounded by water already so your gander bulb ducts would know not to add any more liquid to the mix!"

"Terezi, that is absolute bullshit."

"Oh, what? Because the blind girl knows nothing about eyes?"

All three of them turned to look at Karkat then. Waiting for his input.

After much careful deliberation, he swallowed, folded his hands on the table. "While I think that all three of you are fucking stupid," He said. Calm. He sighed. "I'm gonna have to agree with shitstain over here. It is completely possible to cry underwater, your tears would just dissolve really fast."

There were quite a few exclamations of "Ha!" and "Told  _you!_ " from Dave, along with disagreements from the others, and as lunch went on, Karkat had to admit that he was enjoying himself. Just a little. Not enough that he could be sure that hanging out with these four would be a regular thing, but enough that he could admit to maybe not completely platonic-hating them. And Dave was being really nice. He'd started the conversation up again, hadn't he? Made sure that Karkat was included. That didn't mean that Karkat  _liked_ him, or pitied him or loved him or any of that other dumb stuff that hurt his thinkpan, no. He could just  _tolerate_ him. For now. Until, maybe, he sought an opportunity for another room, or finished his years at college.

So he was enjoying himself.

Until Terezi brought up the weekend.

"Karkles," She jabbed an accusing finger his way. Pointed and painted black and teal. "What are you doing on Saturday? Tell me that it's nothing. I would like to hear that it's nothing."

He wasn't actually doing anything. Mostly, he was planning on doing exactly what he'd done this weekend that had just passed; staying as far away from everyone else as possible and abusing the wi-fi purposes of local cafés. "I don't know," He said. "I'm probably busy though."

Terezi rolled her eyes- which looked creepy as hell, especially through the hazy red of her glasses, a shudder rolled up Karkat's spine- and poked him in the chest with the still-pointed finger. "You're damn right you're busy, I'm throwing a party."

Karkat didn't blink. "You don't think you're too old to be 'throwing parties'?"

She acted offended. She stood up. Karkat sunk lower in his chair. They were attracting the attention of onlookers. "The lady highly resents that statement, Karkles! It is a  _college_ party. With  _drunk_ people! And you're coming, because Dave is coming, and Sollux is coming, and Rose and Jade are coming to visit and it's just going to be really fun alright."

Karkat put both hands over his head as if to shield himself from the crazy girl standing over him. People were staring. Dave was pissing himself. "Alright, fuck, I'll go, just sit back down."

She fell gracefully back into her seat, a satisfied, if not savage, grin on her face. "Obviously."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im really sorry this hasnt been updated in ages. im really inconsistent with my writing and i dont really have any proper excuses for that. bear with me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a party happens

By the time Friday rolled around, Karkat was sure of about two things. Firstly, there was no way in Hell he was going to this party without having to interact with Dave in some way, and secondly, even if he did find a way to avoid him, he doubted Terezi would pass up an opportunity to then lock them both in a closet as punishment or something.

“Yo.” He stopped at the door, irritated. In front of him stood Dave’s 5’6” frame, towering over his barely 5’2” in a way that was all kinds of embarrassing. Today, much like every other day, he opted for the ‘no shirt and ridiculously showy boxers’ combo, an outfit Karkat was sure he designed for the sole purpose of embarrassing himself. He didn’t get the whole irony thing, and he refused to even try.

He sucked in a sharp breath, keeping his eyes pointed promptly forward instead of up, where he was sure one of those dumb impassive faces was waiting for him. “Excuse me,” he gritted through tightly-clenched teeth. His roommate didn’t budge. “You’re coming to Terezi’s mad bash tonight, yeah?”

“Don’t you have class?”

“Yeah.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you gonna  _go?_ ”

Dave shrugged. “Yeah. Probably. Later if I feel like it.”

It was silent. Karkat was contemplating punching him.

“So are you going to the shindig or what?”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

“You wanna go together?”

His gaze flicked up then, against his own will and protests long forgotten. From this close, he could only just make out Dave’s eyes, but not their colour; rather, they emitted a dark looking palette of maybe two or more shades of something that was almost brown while tinted, and suddenly, he was in high school again.  _Don’t say like a date Don’t say like a date Don’t say like a date_ “What, like, a date?”

Dave smirked, and Karkat considered his chances for either stabbing him in the dick or absconding the fuck out of there. Both seemed unlikely for his current situation. He cursed internally and continued to glower at Dave, hoping to pass off the comment as one of disgust.

“Well gee, Karkitty, I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of commitment yet.”

“Fuck you, let me pass—” The speed with which Dave’s leg trapped Karkat between him and the door would have been comical, if it had not been so annoying. Karkat’s shoulders went stiff and he stared, blankly, at the space in front of him, seeing nothing but grey and chanting what were meant to be calming thoughts over and over again in his mind.

“You know you look like a cat when you do that?”

He opened his mouth, ready with a bout of insults, but Dave interrupted him before he had the chance. “Baby no, I can change. Alright, listen, here’s the deal. I get that you hate me. Or whatever. I’ve said that before. Shut up Dave. I, uh…” It was only then that Karkat looked up on his own accord, sort of through his lashes and there it was, just like he’d expected—Dave was _flustered._ Nothing dramatic, certainly not the kind of flustered that Karkat was familiar with from years of looking in the mirror, but he was definitely not blank-faced. He ran a hand through his hair, flexing his shoulders and then slumping them kind of dejectedly. He laughed nervously, quiet. “Christ I’m bad at this. I just thought, y’know, since we’re roommates, you might wanna… shit, I don’t know. Go with me?”

Karkat blinked. This may have been the first time in a long time that he had nothing to say.

Dave went on, practically babbling now. “I’m not saying it’s a date, ‘cause it’s not, and Lord knows you’ve made it clear that whatever happened back in high school was—okay so you probably don’t wanna talk about that. I’m just… I know that the whole comical banter act is fun, like, sit-com style roommates, but I’d like it if we were like, not at each other’s throats for long enough to walk down to Terezi’s room together.”

When Karkat continued to not saying anything, Dave promptly stepped out of the way, running a hand through damp hair and attempting to reach for his cool façade again. Whatever had just happened had rendered him very uncool, though, a trait Karkat had never seen on him; and Hell, now here he was thinking all kinds of ridiculous things, trying to imagine Dave having a life outside of his shades and ironic music, wondering if all that stuff John had said about him being dorky all throughout school was true…

“I don’t hate you,” He muttered, fiddling with the dingy door handle until he got it open. He pretended like he hadn’t heard Dave fumble on his intake of breath like an absolute moron and looked over his shoulder. “My last class ends at 5. We should walk over then.”

He was pretty sure that Dave was still gaping when he left. Karkat tried to convince himself that the butterflies in his stomach that then refused to leave him for the next hour had to do with the fact that he had been caught off guard, and not the fact that it was Dave at all. Since their kiss in high school, and the epiphany of all of his repressed that then came from that and led to an entire year of trying to get his shit together, Karkat had refused to think about him in that way, because, of course, it had been a fluke hormonal thing. He was still in the throes of puberty, and dealing with a clinical depression, so it was really no surprise that he had some form of crush on both the first attractive boy to show him any kindness and his first kiss. That had all passed with graduation and with the year he had taken off to disappear; he moved upstate with Gamzee, into a snug little apartment in the lower part of a shifty neighbourhood home to mostly trolls and a few drug addict humans; Gamzee fit in nicely, and neither of them caused trouble. After a while it stopped scaring Karkat and he started liking the skinny troll girls with the scars and the friendly lowbloods who understood that reporting someone for shifty behaviour (i.e, buying large amounts for sopor for Gamzee in order to keep him hooked and out of trouble) was a shitty thing to do and was looked down upon by every other inhabitant of the small, dingy downtown area. He’d stopped thinking about Dave and his friends so much and started focussing on providing; he and Gamzee were practically a married couple by that stage, minus the nights when he’d come home to low keening sounds of his best friend and the tall troll with the stitches over his mouth that seemed to idolize Gam to a point of security. Those nights Karkat would leave the groceries and the sopor on the bench and flee the apartment, go hang out at the park with some of the local delinquents he never bothered to learn the name of. He would people watch, and sometimes, he’d even go across  the street into the little internet café and curiously research colleges. Only then came a point when it stopped being curiosity and started being purpose. By then, it had been a long year of slumming it as far as the economy was concerned and tending to his best friend’s psychotic habits when he rendered near sober. He didn’t leave until he could be absolutely sure that the guy with the stitched-up mouth was going to take good care of Gamzee, and even then he wasn’t sure.

Karkat felt that he seriously needed to relax, and wondered if he wouldn’t maybe ask Dave if he could try some alcohol or something. He’d never really paid attention to the media it had on trolls, but he figured it had to have a similar effect as sopor, only perhaps it fucked you up less.

Class droned on mindlessly and it was all he could do to jot down the occasional words that registered in his mind, as now, of course, all he could think about was Dave. He’d known the whole irony thing was an act, sure, but seeing it slip away had been such a  _surprise._ He wondered if it was because they were sharing a bed, or maybe because Dave was remembering a time when he and Karkat had almost been friends, but for whatever reason, something in him had stirred and he’d slipped up. Now he was remembering high school, of course, and in particular the day when Dave had forced him to come up to his apartment and shower and eat. He’d been nervous then, just like he was nervous now, and back then, Karkat would have sworn to Hell and back that it was just Dave being an asshole. Now… he wasn’t so sure. He thought, again, about the night he’d sat around with John and Jade and Gamzee and cried like an idiot and told them that he liked Dave, and how John and Jade had laughed and then John had had a fucking field day discussing in intricate detail all of the embarrassing things Dave had done and how he was actually the lamest person on the planet. Jade had seemed a little defensive, claiming that Dave was still a pretty cool guy, but John had been having none of it. Up until now Karkat hadn’t been sure to what extent he believed John, but… it made sense. Dave couldn’t be  _that_ cool, and besides, what was impressive about not having feelings? He  _liked_ the thought of Dave having a blog, Dave going with John to old comic book stores and scouring the racks for antiques, Dave becoming extremely upset and sensitive when it came to hurting animals, Dave falling on his face on the first day of eighth grade at a new school and nope, he definitely wasn’t sitting there with a dumb fond smile on his face thinking about Dave Strider actually being a huge dork.

As soon as class ended and he was granted lunch break, Karkat practically flew to the cafeteria to find Terezi, hoping to God he’d catch her before she met up with Sollux and Dave. He did, in the end, and quickly pulled her by the arm before she could get to line up with her tray, stating simply, “I need to talk to you.”

She made a little “oop” noise under her breath, but let him tug her along nonetheless, stopping when he did, when they were out of sight of most people. She grinned at him quizzically. “Are you in trouble with the law?”

“Okay so I—wait, what?”

“Because, if you’re in trouble with the law, it is my obligation as a just citizen to report any unjust behaviour on your part. Do I have to call the police?”

“Okay, can you, like, not be a freaky law student for five minutes and shut up and listen to me?”

She shut her mouth, but it was not without a proud grin and a little swing back on her heels. She waited.

“Is Dave a total dork?”

Terezi raised her eyebrows, clearly not having expected  _that._ “Dave? Yeah, totally. Why?”

Karkat sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "Okay, so... don't take this in the wrong way, or anything, because I definitely don't fucking care  _at all,_ but... he's not a total asshole, right? I mean, he's actually a decent human being once you get past all of the irony bullshit?"

Terezi stared. And grinned. And continued to stare and grin long enough to make Karkat fifty shades of uncomfortable to the point where he was considering just walking away because he knew this was a bad idea. Eventually, though, she spoke, and when she did so it was with the most malevolent grin he thought he'd ever seen her wear. She leant right in. "You like Dave."

"NO FUCK YOU I DO NOT LIKE DAVE I EXPLICITLY STATED TO BEGIN WITH THAT THIS IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT CAN YOU PLEASE TAKE SOMETHING SERIOUSLY FOR ONCE I JUST WANTED TO KNOW IF HE WAS DECENT OR NOT BECAUSE HE'S MY ROOMMATE AND I'D RATHER PUT UP WITH HIM KNOWING HE ONLY PRETENDS TO BE AN ASSHOLE RATHER THAN ACTUALLY IS AN ASSHOLE THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM LIKING ME TEREZI PLEASE STOP SMILING YOU'RE MAKING ME REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE-"

He wondered for a second why he'd stopped talking, and slowly, the realisation dawned on him that it was because Terezi had promptly placed her hand on his mouth. He narrowed his eyes. When she'd finished shooshing him, she took a calm, deliberate breath, and smiled. "Dave's a dork," she begins, all calm words and predatory grin, "I'll admit that there was a time when I thought that the coolkid was still genuinely a coolkid, but no, he's a massive dork. His life revolves around these really lame, shitty comics, which are hilarious by the way. Don't let him fool you with that irony bullshit, because he genuinely loves The Notebook and let me tell you there have been one too many times when I have seen him openly weep just getting started talking about Noah and Allie so don't try to tell me that he's just doing it to be cool. Let's see, what else... oh, I don't know if John told you about that time his brother tried to prank him with his weird sex puppets, but that was hilarious, and Bro filmed the whole thing so we've seen it, like, a billion times. The irony thing is a total cover-up, I'm telling you. It's just because that was always his Bro's thing, and he really looked up to the guy, 'specially considering he was really unpopular all throughout elementary and middle school. And then there's the fact that he had a die-hard crush on your sorry ass, and-"

Karkat wrenched her hand off of his mouth. "He what."

Terezi stopped, raising a single eyebrow. "Had a die-hard crush on you... dude. As if you seriously didn't know. Didn't the two of you have totally sloppy makeouts or something?"

"What, I- no. We didn't... we kissed once, okay? But that's not the point. I thought... didn't Dave hate me?"

Terezi's expression became one of genuine sympathy, and she placed a hand on Karkat's shoulder. "Oh, sweetie."

He frowned, but she continued on to speak as if she didn't even care. "Listen, no. You liked Dave, he liked you. It was pretty fucking plain and simple. And so... other people, who liked you, stepped down, because everyone just figured it was a matter of days before Dave got the balls to make a serious move on you and you stopped being so tsundere. And then like, out of nowhere, you moved. That is literally the only reason DaveKat never happened, okay."

"Holy shit you gave us a ship name I can't believe you-"

"Karkat, baby, listen here a second will you? It's very clear that you still hone feelings for Dave. So if you wanna know something about him,  _ask_ him. I'm sure he'll piss his fucking coolkid pants for an opportunity to have a conversation with you that doesn't start with "get out of my fuckass face fuckass strider"," She mocks him in a poor rendition of his voice, high pitched and agressive. Then she steps away, mad grin and all, and gestures to her lunch tray. "I'm gonna go get lunch, because I'm hungry and you're stupid. Feel free to come sit with us."

She started backing away, still grinning, when Karkat stopped her, calling out her name hurriedly. She stopped and looked at him, annoyed. "Does, he, um..." He scratched the back of his neck, looking away very pointedly. "Does he still like me?"

Terezi grinned. Then fucking  _winked._ "Guess you'll have to ask him that yourself, too." She walked off, back into the crowd of the cafeteria, and Karkat slumped his shoulders, defeated. Well, fuck.

He didn't sit with them.

Instead, he spent his break walking around campus not thinking about how much he did  _not_ still like Dave and listening to angsty music on loop on his iPod. Then class started again, and he continued to not think about Dave through three lectures.

By the time it was five o'clock he'd had three nervous break downs and contemplated running away so that he didn't have to go to this party a total of nine times. He didn't, of course, just shoved his hands in his pockets and muttered curse words under his breath the whole way back to his dorm room, shutting up only when he was within five metres of it because of course Dave was waiting right by the door. 

He pretended not to have been, fiddling with his guitar and not even looking up when Karkat came in, but it was blatantly obvious and Karkat didn't even pretend not to be aware of it. "Alright, so, here's the deal. I am going to get changed. We are going to go to this party, and  _you_ are not going to be an asshole. I mean it. The whole night. Just... be you, okay?"

Dave raised his eyebrows. "I thought you thought that I was an asshole. So in theory, wouldn't acting like myself be acting like an asshole?"

Karkat threw his shirt at him, having previously been taking it off on the way to the bathroom with a pile of clothes in his hands. He didn't even turn around to see if Dave was staring, mostly because he didn't know how he'd feel if he  _was_ staring, and went straight into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him. Once he was dressed, he stopped and stared at his outfit for a whole five minutes, frowning and trying to decide if it looked as bad as he thought it did. Dark blue shirt, black jacket with the sleeves rolled up, black jeans. It was casual, but way too different from the baggy sweaters he normally wore for him to be totally comfortable in it. The shirt wasn't exactly tight, but it was pretty tightly clung to his sides. He shifted and pulled at it uncomfortably.

Dave banged his fist on the bathroom door then, startling him into a jump. "Come oooon, man, we've gotta leave or we'll miss Rose and  _Jaaaa_ -"

Karkat opened the door, gaze flat, and Dave shut up mid-word, smiling brilliantly. "Thought you'd never come out, princess, can we-" He stopped and gave Karkat a once over. "Whoa. Damn."

"What did I say about being an asshole?"

Dave shrugged, looking sheepish. "Nah man, you fail to understand the Strider-charm. You told me to be myself, and 'myself' happens to come in the same package as 'unabashedly honest'. It's all explained on the label."

"You're so weird," Karkat muttered on the walk past, but he was smiling now. Stupid Strider and his Stupid Charm. He didn't like him. He didn't like him. Not anymore. He didn't-

"Allow me, m'lady," Dave said, sweeping down in a gallant bow as he jumped forward to get the door for Karkat. Karkat rolled his eyes, stepping past and giving Dave a dismissive flick on the ear. 

The air between them wasn't exactly ideal, but it was certainly the most comfortable it had been since Karkat's arrival at the college, and if he was being totally honest, it was actually kind of friendly. They make mild conversation about music; about how Karkat likes Milo Greene and Alex Turner and Brand New and Dave likes Crystal Castles and Avicii and Flight Facilities and they both like the Smiths. They talked about the classes they were doing and how they were finding them; oddly enough, how they were both taking psychology in different classes, with Karkat excelling in dreams and sleep patterns and Dave in human behaviour and lying. They were just finishing their conversation about the professors at the college when they got down to Terezi's room, which was emitting loud, repetitive music, the hall around it covered in a carpet of drinking teenagers, trolls and humans alike. Karkat had barely knocked when the door swung open, Terezi screeching his and Dave's names and flinging her arms around both of them. As soon as she pulled away, she said something he didn't catch over the music and gestured them inside. Or, more specifially, to where Rose, Kanaya and Jade were waiting inside.

Jade pushed past the partygoers shamelessly, with Rose trailing hand-in-hand with Kanaya behind, both of them looking ridiculously fashionable for the circumstances. Dave and Jade exchanged hugs and Jade started chattering excitedly about missing him immediately, leaving Rose with barely enough space to get a hello in. They stood out there for some time, all talking and enjoying the (awful) music, and after a while, Karkat began to really enjoy himself. Maybe it was just Jade's excitement rubbing off on him, or maybe it was the way that (he was definitely not enjoying) Dave's arm kept brushing against his and he began to decide that he looked really good in this light, but for whatever reason, he began to relax, and then to  _enjoy himself._ They were out there for what was probably several hours but felt like barely twenty minutes before Jade had to go and said goodbye to everyone, Karkat included. As soon as she was gone, Rose decided it was time they all excused themselves and got the Hell away from all this noise. They ended up in Terezi's bathroom, a bottle of alcohol accompanying them. _  
_

Rose and Dave passed the vodka back and forth and very soon, they all became comfortable again and fell right back into their light banter and conversation.

"We should play truth or dare," Dave said, taking a long sip of the bottle and making a physical effort not to wince, probably at the taste, though Karkat didn't know as he'd never tried human alcohol. 

Rose clapped her hands together, violent excitement catching fire in her eyes. "Ooh, yes! I'm completely up for this; Kanaya?"

Kanaya tilted her head, short hair spilling over one shoulder of a beautifully tailored green dress. "What is 'truth or dare'?"

"It's a game," Karkat said.

Dave went on to explain, "It's like, someone asks 'truth or dare', and you have to pick one. If you pick truth you have to answer a totally humiliating question, and if you pick dare you have to do whatever we tell you to do. Refuse and you forfeit the round."

Kanaya looked excited suddenly. "I... think I understand the concept. Yes, alright, let's do it."

"Karkat, you up for it?"

He leaned back against the cabinets, smiling. "Yeah, sure. Why the fuck not?"

"Sweet," Dave said, nodding affirmatively. "But Lalonde, first you've gotta pass me that bottle, because I've gotta be  _hella_ drunk to do this right."

Rose rolled her eyes but passed him the bottle anyway, with which he took a huge swig from and squeezed his eyes shut to swallow. It looked uncomfortable. Karkat wondered why the hell he'd put himself through that for the sake of being drunk. 

Kanaya eyed the bottle curiously, and after a moment, asked, "May I have a sip of that?"

Dave looked between her and the bottle, and finally, shrugged, passing it over. She took it in her hand and gave a tentative sip, wincing at the taste. "Oh, that's... well, that's interesting."

"It gets better," Rose joked, rubbing her matesprit's back. "Trust me." She kissed Kanaya's jaw as she took another sip, and Karkat and Dave both gagged on cue. 

"How 'bout you, Karkles, you want some?"

"Fuck no," he spat, glaring at the bottle. "Hell if I'm poisoning my insides with that."

"You're gonna be," Rose hiccuped, clearly bordering on drunk already. "The only one playing sober if you don't. That will probably suck."

Karkat shrugged, remaining defiant, and Dave rolled his eyes, reaching into his jacket pocket. "Well luckily for Mr Killjoy over here, I came with backup." He threw the squishy packet into Karkat's lap, and the troll narrowed his eyes.

"No. Fuck you."

"Aw, come on, man," Dave said, and was he seriously pouting?

Rose leaned forward. "Is that-"

"Karkat, that can't be healthy," Kanaya threw in, blinking, shocked, at the packet.

And suddenly he felt defiant. His friends had no idea about the past year he'd had, studying up on sopor and trying it himself and seeing the effects that it can have on people only when abused. He felt like he needed to prove to them that he was absolutely capable of handling it, like...

Like Dave seemed to already know he was.

Rolling his eyes, he tore open the packet at the top and dipped a finger in, leisurely scooping a bit of the sour/bitter slime into his mouth. Rose rolled her eyes and Kanaya gaped. Dave elbowed him and cheered. Ten minutes later, they were playing the game with complete abandon, all of Karkat's previous worries, and thoughts, even, forgotten with each new scoop of the stuff into his mouth. It had only been ten short minutes and already he was floating, drowsy and happy and content to laugh loudly along with the other three when Kanaya had to go out there, find Terezi and swap panties with him. She came back green-cheeked and horrified, claiming only, "I have never seen her look both so confused or so excited before in my entire life. Please don't make me do that again."

He learnt his lesson from watching the other three as to never, ever pick dare, and every one of the truths thrown at him seemed to have to do with Dave in some way- "would you ever mack on with dave?" "fuck no." "what's the worst part about being that loser's roommate?" "he literally walks around in underwear with ponies on them at all hours of the day." "would you totally frick with me if you had the chance?" "gross, hell no, dream on loser."-and he didn't care, kept playing with an easy smile and a dumb, airy attitude.

After a while he began to realise that it was because he genuinely  _liked_ hanging out with them like this. He liked Rose's usual intelligence and snark paired with a slur in her speech and a drunken tendancy to giggle at everything, liked the sincere way with which Kanaya touched her and smiled at her whenever she spoke, liked Dave's voice with his accent carelessly slipping due to the alcohol and Dave's smile and Dave's stupid comment and Dave-

The bottle of vodka was nearly empty when he began to notice a change in Kanaya. She became quieter as the game went on, became a lot touchier with Rose. She'd just started to kiss up her neck, which wasn't like her at  _all,_ when Rose lost it and excused the two of them in a way Karkat was sure was meant to be polite but came out kind of breathlessly and agressively. They both hurried out of the bathroom together, Kanaya with her arm slung around Rose's shoulder, and shut the door on their way out, leaving Dave and Karkat alone.

They didn't speak while Dave tipped the bottle back and finished off the last bit, but then he swallowed, sighed loudly, and turned to Karkat with a grin. "Alright. Truth or dare, yo."

"Truth," Karkat said, rolling his eyes and relaxing back against the counter again. He wasn't sure when, but at some point they'd gotten closer, now only inches away from touching. 

Dave pursed his lips thoughtfully. Finally, "Kay. Why d'you hate me so much?"

Karkat rolled his eyes again and folded his arms, relaxed and sleepy and just so  _warm_ against the counter, fuck, if college was gonna be like this he never wanted to leave. "I don't know. I don't, not really, I just... got some trust issues, I guess." It was the most honest answer he could muster up, and when he saw the genuinely caring and curious look Dave was giving him, he continued on to talk, scratching his chin absently. "I don't expect you to get what Alternia was like, but Alternia was pretty full-on, I guess. And then the move here... and having Kankri come into my life, so early. It all fucked me over. High School was Hell, so that didn't help. I mean, it's no secret that I had problems, right? I just... I've ever really had friends. I don't know what it's like. My people skills aren't great, so."

When he stopped, he looked up at Dave, finding his expression impossibly sober and frank and _real,_ not emotionless and stoic like he put on so often. Karkat swallowed, and smiled, trying to lighten up the mood again. "Alright, so, truth or dare?"

"Truth," Dave said, but his expression didn't change, and his gaze didn't move.

Karkat grinned, and leant forward to poke him in the chest. "Why do  _you_ hate  _me?_ "

Dave didn't blink. "I don't. Truth or dare?"

Karkat shifted uncomfortably, caught in an awkward position. Dave had been so  _blunt,_ so... he shook it off and sighed, looking up at Dave with a half-smile. "Ah, why the Hell not? Dare."

Dave seemed to snap out of whatever serious position he'd been in then, and shook his head, smiling thoughtfully. An idea seemed to strike him suddenly, because he looked back at Karkat, grinning and waggling his eyebrows. "I dare you... to kiss me."

Karkat blinked, shocked. Was he serious?

When Dave's expression didn't change in the least, he concluded that he was infact serious, and swallowed, nervously.

"Okay."

Dave waited, and slowly, Karkat pushed himself up on his hands and lent forward, tentatively, slowly. His eyes went from Dave's mouth to Dave's eyes and back again, finding his expression irritatingly unreadable. When he got close enough to feel the human's breath on his, he took a surprised intake of breath, getting one from Dave in return, and it then became apparent that his hand was on Dave's thigh. Closing his eyes, he thought,  _fuck it,_ and lent the rest of the way in.

And Terezi chose that moment to burst through the bathroom door.

Right before their lips could touch.

They broke apart, mortified, but before Karkat could think to bitch her out Terezi started talking, hair messy and face glum, and it wasn't until then that it occurred to Karkat that the music had stopped, possibly long ago.

"We're in trouble. The Dean's here."

And then Karkat decided he hated Dave again.

They were all in trouble- him, Dave, Terezi, and three other people he didn't know who hadn't had the chance to flee when the Dean came by-for excessive noise and alcohol abuse. Apparently, they had breached some of the college's rules (and Karkat could quote, "I don't even  _want_ to get started on the drugs, so I'll pretend I didn't see all that marijuana when I came in") and they were being suspended from all college activity, including classes, until Wednesday next week.

By the end of their lecture, Karkat had sobered enough to know that he was  _furious_ with Dave, because obviously this was all his fault, so he didn't even bother speaking to him on the walk back. He simply stormed into their room, showered and changed, climbed into bed and faced as far away from Dave as humanly possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so um i'm gonna hopefully get back to updating this regularly because i went back and read the comments the other day and everyone's just really sweet and supportive and yeah i miss this story :') so if you're a regular reader i'm really really sorry for not updating, like, ever, but i've been going through some shit (bc being me is hard and no-one understands) and school is really annoying. but starting now i'm hopefully gonna update heaps, so yeah, that's a thing. feel free to message me @ my blawg to ask me stuff about it, i promise i'm not as dorky and as awful (i am) as i seem and i also don't bite so you should probably be my friend. bee2knee2.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

Dave was out of their room and in a cab before the sun had risen.

It was a last minute, spur-of-the-moment decision, one he made after not being able to get back to sleep with the sound of Karkat's shallow breathing and fluttery heart beat as he clinged to him, all the ferocity of his apparently random hatred towards Dave swept clean with the absence of consciousness. Dave took one look through the box of money he kept under the bed and decided to just go for it, since everyone he knew around here were (no offense intended to them, might he add) romance-starved lunatics who actually had no realistic concept of what it was like to be in a committed relationship.

So he was going to see someone who was.

This 'someone' was actually two 'someones', and to get to them it would take a forty-minute cab ride and a three-and-a-half-hour plane ride; not to mention the noise-cancelling headphones and three root beers it took for him to rid of the nausea of flying he'd never quite gotten used to.

By the time he arrived at the familar looking airport in Texas, it was almost half past nine in the morning and he just wanted a hot drink that wasn't going to taste like it had been birthed in a fountain of sugar and oranges, so his brother's place probably wasn't going to help. He stopped off at a Denny's on his way through the city and ordered a very disgusting tasted coffee, downing it with a bitter grimace to rival Karkat's before he was on the road again, at least a little less tired now.

It was almost lunchtime when he got to the ironically and endearingly tacky pile of rubble that his brother referred to as an apartment building, lugging his feather-weight bag of spare underwear and a hoodie up the stairs (the elevator hadn't worked since he was three) and shuffling his way over to the place he'd grown up in. He fished the spare key from its perpetual home buried in a plastic pot plant, slid it promptly into place inside the rusted lock.

And walked in on his brother and John having sex.

Ten minutes and a lot of shouting later, he sat shivering under a blanket at the kitchen table, refusing to make eye contact with either members of the now infamous butt-sex duo. John set a steaming mug of hot apple cider down in front of him (with a coaster, and what the fuck, since when did Bro own fucking coasters) and sat down, still stammering apologies and begging to be forgiven, red in the face even though he was now completely dressed and left with no signs at all of what he'd been doing before Dave got there. Bro, however, just looked pissed, arms folded and having made no attempt at all to cover up the marks on his neck or his messy hair; John was wearing a scarf in a futile fight against the Texan heat, which was very present even in the colder months. 

"I am  _sooo_ sorry, Dave," he tried again, looking absolutely mortified seated next to Bro. It was like some sick family meeting, like walking in on your parents fucking, only here was Dave sitting and gagging on the side of the table facing the older brother who had raised him and his best fucking derpy-as-shit friend. This was fucked up.

"Just- don't, okay, oh my God," he said into the mug when he picked it up, drinking despite the scorching liquid burning his tongue. He swallowed it and shuddered. "And what the Hell is even wrong with you two, it's like, midday. John, don't you have classes?" He'd just been bitching the other day on Pesterchum about hating his Saturday classes.

John turned bright red again. "Not until later."

Bro jumped in. "Just so we clear things up, you've seen this idiot naked at least three times before this, so I don't even know why you've having a girly fuckin' annuerism in the first place, but he was not topping."

"Stop."

"My dick was still quite in him despite his being on top of me. Just so you know. In case you weren't sure what you saw."

"Stop, Bro, oh my God."

"Dirk."

"And liking lace does not make me any less of a man."

He was begging his brother to stop now, but he was laughing, and both the horrified look that John wore and the subtle smirk on his brother's face were enough to almost make the situation seem less horrifying than it actually was. He tried to shake off the sickly feeling in his gut and cleared his throat, leaning back in his seat. He blew on his drink before taking a sip of it. "So since when were you calling the old fart Dirk now, hm?"

John turned some obscene shade of red again, but tried his best to keep his composure, bless him, and cleared his own throat, refusing to look at Bro despite his gaze clearly being plastered on John. "Oh, I don't, um, know actually, I guess it's kind of just... a thing that started happening."

Dave gave them a bittersweet smile. "Well, you're both sick and disgusting and adorable. Congrats."

John looked kind of upset until he saw the pride on Bro's face and figured that it had been Dave's idea of a compliment. He took it and shrugged, happy, then stood up from his seat. "I'm gonna make coffee, do you want coffee?"

"Thanks, wench," Bro affirmed, and gave his boyfriend a prompt pat on the ass. John turned around and smacked him in the head, but he was grinning, embarrassed and happy. They were literally so sickening.

"So what brings you to our neck of the woods?" Bro ventured, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms again. "I mean, assuming you didn't make a four hour trip over here just to see John and I doing the do. You know you can totally just check the website for that."

"Dirk, oh my God, shut the fuck up," came John's mutter from the other side of the kitchen. He didn't even turn around, just kept filling the kettle with water and preparing two cups of instant. 

Dave grinned. "Thanks for the gesture, but I grew up with enough accidental knowledge of your creepy money-making fetishes to know that it's better I just accept the fact that you're shady and gross and rich and take the money. Would you believe me if I said I was just here because I missed you?"

"No, I would not," his brother answered honestly, as if it was the obvious conclusion to draw. Dave rolled his eyes, unseen behind the shades but he was sure the older man could pick out the twitch of the rest of his face now to know what he had done.

"Seriously, wow, so rude of you. Okay so maybe I have ulterior motives, but-"

"You need money?" Bro raised an eyebrow.

Dave promptly shook his head. "Naw, I'm cool, thanks, but you know I'd totally let you know if I did."

"It's nice to see you being gracious and making the mature decision to start caring for yourself now," said Bro, brows drawing together slowly. "Alright, so you don't need money, and you  _weren't_ apparently here to get your freak on in the house of sex-addled Egbert ass... you need advice."

Dave didn't bother answering him, because the blank look on his face was enough for his brother to smirk in satisfaction. John caught on, too, much to his surprise, turning around and clapping his hands to his cheeks excitedly, face lighting up with a pleasantly surprised gasp. "Ooh, romantic advice? Is this about Karkat?"

"No."

"It's totally about Karkat. 've you slept with him yet?"

"Did John tell you?" Dave accused, narrowing his eyes at his sheepish friend, who stood at the counter waiting for the water to boil. "Because I don't know what he said, but it's not like the outlandishly pretty troll boy just rode in on a fucking horse one afternoon and asked for my hand in troll-matrimony, because it didn't happen like that. He hates me."

John and Bro both scoffed at the exact same time. It was actually kind of creepy.

"He doesn't  _hate_ you," John chided, and then turned to pour the now-boiled water.

Bro continued for him, "Yeah, from what I remember, he was all up and knotting his freaking panties to get within the same vicinity as you. Totally in love."

"He was  _blushing,_ " John gushed, setting the mugs and their coasters down on the table and returning to his spot next to Bro. "You should have seen it, oh man. Dave was shirtless."

"That's my boy."

"I didn't take it  _off,_ you jackass, he just happened to show up at some ridiculous hour in the morning," Dave scoffed, taking another long drink of his cider. Shit, it was good. He would never, ever tell John that he was good at making cider. He'd never hear the end of the bragging stick.

"It was four in the afternoon."

"Po-tay-to po-tah-to. That's not what this is about."

"Oh?" John raised an eyebrow. "So then, he's stopped being pissy and angry and loud and started being real about his feelings with you?"

"Yes. Well, no, but..." Dave sighed, raking a hand through his hair and trying to ignore the way his older brother was holding his smirk. Asswipe. "Okay, so, 'it's complicated' and all that shit, you can go ahead and change my Facebook status and help me cut off all of my hair and buy a cat to die alone with, I don't care, I am done."

"Dave, you are so uncool," John comments, taking a methodical sip of his coffee.

Dave nods in complete agreement. "I lost my cool years ago, man. Where is it? Where is the cool? We don't know. That shit is as lost as Waldo, motherfucker aint never getting found."

"So back on the subject of aforementioned troll boy," Bro said, folding his hands on the table next to his coffee, which was still steaming. "He's not being pissy and angry and loud, but he's also not being real about his feelings for you."

Dave nodded, even though it wasn't really a question. Bro  _tsk_ ed. "So, what, are you two assholes just dancing around each other about this whole thing then?"

"He doesn't like me," Dave stated explicitly, and of all the things he'd said at this table this morning, this was the truest. 

"Bullshit," said Bro.

"Bullshit," John agreed.

Dave all but slammed his hands down. "He doesn't, okay? If you'd have been there..." He trailed off, sighing his perpetual angst into the distant as he worried his bottom lip between straight teeth. "Look, it's not like High School. I get it, okay, he may have possibly liked me then... because of the whole kiss thing. And  _only_ because of the whole kiss thing, so don't start telling me any different about how he was actually in love with me right from the get-go because he secretly has a thing for pompous asshole nerds with crooked teeth, because I'm not going to buy it. Anyway, whatever that was, even  _that_ is gone now. He hates me. Pretty much told me himself..." He thought back to last night, and doubled back, sounding unsure. "Well, okay, maybe not  _hate_ hates me. He did kind of tell me he had trust issues last night."

John and Bro exchanged grins, and Dave tried not to be sick before he continued speaking. "So he's pretty much been avoiding me as much as possible since he got here, swearing at me and calling me a dick and the likes. Y'know, classic Krabbycat, so normally it'd be like whatever, he's just an avoidant dude with some emotional issues, but no. It's not even like High School, back when he'd just glare at people out of sheer awkwardness because he didn't know how to talk to anyone and got all of his information about how to be mysterious and cool from bad romantic comedies. Now it's like he has a  _reason_ to hate me, like... I don't know, like he's going out of his way to make sure that he doesn't have one nice conversation with me. I mean, except for last night, but like, that took a hell of a lot of effort. First I had to convince him to go to TZ's party with me in the first place, and then when we got there I had to convince him to sit with Rose and Kanaya and I in Terezi's bathroom and get high with us, and from then on it was pretty smooth sailing, 'cus, y'know, he was high and all. We were playing truth or dare, and he said he didn't hate me, just has trust issues because of what Alternia was like and how he was kind of fucked up all through High School and... stuff." Neither Bro nor John knew about the suicide attempt. He'd kept that to himself. "But then, he like, picked dare, so I thought, shit man, here's my chance, I'm just gonna go for it, and my drunk self was like 'yo I dare you to kiss me'. And he said okay. Freaking. Okay. And then-"

"Oh my God, you totally got your mack on in Terezi's bathroom," Bro commented, lips lifting up into a grin.

Dave glowered. "Will you let me finish? No, we didn't, because Terezi fucking  _burst_ in without knocking and said we were in trouble with the Dean. So, like, I'm suspened until Wednesday, which is stupid, because what the fuck, I still have to pay for classes I'm not allowed to attend, but that's not the point here. As soon as we got back to our room he was full-frontal hatred for me again. Wouldn't even look at me. So, yeah, you can understand why my emotions are all distraught and shit by this point."

John looked genuinely sorry for him, and just when he was about to feel a little better, he realised that his brother just looked annoyed and frowned at him. Asshole. 

"Dave," he said, finally, "Karkat likes you. I don't know what part of that you can't seem to force past your mushy excuse for a Strider brain."

Desperately, he looked to John, hoping to get some sane advice, but instead he was met with a look that was almost guilty. "It's pretty obvious, dude," John said quietly.

Dave leaned his head back, threw an arm over his eyes and groaned. "You two are so stupiiiid."

"Well, what do you expect us to do here, Dave?" He heard John ask. "Lie and say that Karkat hates you? Because, um, he doesn't, and I think it'd be really cool if the two of you could sort out your differences and fall in love and stuff. Because you're both my best bros, and I want you to be happy."

Dave was quiet for a minute. Finally, voice muffled and quiet, he asked, "What do you propose I do about it then?"

He peaked out from under his arm to see that his brother had leant forward, peering at him over his shades with a deadly serious gaze. He pointed a finger. "Yawn move."

"Bro, screw you, I am not doing the fucking yawn move."

"Yawn move always works," he said like he had just revealed his greatest trick, leaning back in his chair and throwing an arm around John. "Worked on this dipshit."

"It did not  _work_ on me!" John exclaimed. Bro pouted.

"Sure it did, baby. I threw that sick motherfucker on you, and two nights later you were  _aching_ for my ochinchin."

"If I recall correctly," John scoffed, rolling his eyes, "it was more like, you attempted to do the yawn move on me and I told you what an obnoxious prick you were, and then  _three_ nights later you managed to court me into going to dinner with you."

Bro nodded, serious. "And then we had sex."

"Alright, that's great, enough, thank you," Dave interrupted, waving his hands at the two idiots in front of him. "Wow. Jesus. "

Both John and Bro were grinning now, and as much as he hated to admit it, shit was cute. Those two lame-o assholes were perfect for each other, and he really did hope they were happy together, even if neither of them wanted to get married or have kids or any of that other conventional stuff. Now all he had left to worry about was his own dramatically failing love life.

"Egbert, can I get some insight here?"

John grew serious yet again. "Dave, if you're serious about this... he needs space, man. I'm not saying you need to avoid him completely! 'Cause, like, that'd probably just piss him off more, but... I don't know. Just try being his friend for a while? One of the biggest things you'll find about Karkat is that he actually thinks mostly everyone is out to get him in some way, or doesn't care, so you just have to be gentle and real and reassuring, I mean, without babying him, because he hates that, and let him know that you really care about him and are capable of being more than his jackass roommate who hits on him."

"So, what you're saying," Dave says, frowning a little. "Is that in order to get him to like me- which I'm not saying is or isn't possible, just putting it out there- I have to  _not_ come onto him romantically."

John nodded. Bro nodded, too, backing him up. "Basically."

"Wow, shit," Dave folded his arms. "Yeah, okay. That's probably really smart, actually. I mean, he did kind of come out and ask me if I could stop being an asshole and start being a little more like myself, so."

"See, look at that!" John encouraged, giving one of his stupidly endearing toothy grins that the braces hadn't been able to fully take away. "He's already opening up and seeing you as less of a dick and more of a person! He'll be head over heels and letting you into his pants in no time."

"This isn't about getting into his pants," Dave defended, oddly adamant about this fact, his cheeks flushing just a little with the thought that someone could take this as him wanting a petty lay with the boy he's been pining after for five years.

Bro snorted. "Oh my God you're such a homo."

John stood up from the table and took their three now-empty cups with him, going over to the sink and filling them with water, cleaning noisily. "Alright, well, as nice as this slumber party has been, I have work in an hour and college in four, and then work again from seven until nine, so I kind of need to get ready."

"Yeah, and I have a lot of TV to watch," Bro added, grinning proudly. "So what, Dave, are you just gonna go back and start your intense courting ritual now, or..?"

"What?" Dave was offended. "Fuck, no, I just flew all the fucking way out here to see you assholes, the least you could do is let me stay for one night."

Bro looked genuinely annoyed at this. "But I was gonna finish fucking my boyfriend, since  _you_ rudely interrupted. That's not fair, you don't get to cockblock me for an entire day."

"You can stay as long as you'd like, Dave," John butted in, coming around to the table to flick his boyfriend on the ear on his way across to the fridge to retrieve an apple. Bro stood up too, and made his way over to put his hands on John's waist. "Don't let your brother discourage you from staying for a fe- _eew_ nights if you need to, oh my God, stop!" He said this as Bro dug his fingers into his side, effectively hurting and tickling him at the same time. The elder turned him around, trapping him between himself and the fridge, and leant down to kiss him, both smiling at first and then sort of melting into it lovingly. Dave made loud vomiting noises and pretended to gag when they finally stopped.

"Thanks, Eggs, but as much as I'd like to stick around and watch my brother shove his tongue down your throat just to piss me off, I should actually be getting back by Monday. I can always use the extra days to study and shit."

"So stay at least tonight?" John asked, hopeful. "We didn't get enough of a chance to hang and bitch about everyone else last I came to visit. All we did was watch Nic Cage movies and play video games."

Dave nodded. "Hell yeah, I'm up for some best bro gossip time."

John grinned. "With beer?"

Dave looked unsure. "You can knock yourself right out, but I still kind of have a hangover from last night, so I'll probably quit after, like, none."

Bro snorted. "Loser."

"Pedophile."

"Alright, well, I'm gonna go get changed," John cut in, rolling his eyes at the two Striders. "Don't... y'know. Kill each other."

It was quiet for a minute after he'd gone.

Finally, Bro asked, "So, have you dated anyone since you started college? I mean, you had to have been getting over him at some point."

Dave rolled his eyes. "Dude it's been, like, three months since I've seen you. Do you mean in between now and then?"

Bro shrugged.

Dave scoffed, but answered anyway. "No, I have not dated anybody in the past three months. I've spent them the exact same way I spent the rest of the past two years of my sick college life: having Pyrope kick my ass at Portal and trying to get the lisping wonder to listen to my tracks. Very unproductive. Very sad."

When he'd first started college, it had been because he wanted to go where Terezi was going, his then and now best friend. (Well, John was his best friend, too, but he had made it clear from the start that he was going to go to the college in Texas.) When he hadn't been mulling over his borderline-obsessive crush on creepy-cool-troll-boy, he'd tried dating her, but if he hadn't said it before, he'd say it now: there was no way in Hell he was ever gonna be able to kiss Terezi on the mouth without first laughing for an hour straight. And that didn't even have to do with him being gay.

"So are you seriously pissed at me for cockblocking you, or what?"

Bro snorted. "Yeah, you bet your ass I'm pissed. Do you know the effort it took for me to get into Egbert's pants the first time? Shit's sacred, not to be treated so lightly."

Dave rolled his eyes. "Oh please, who hasn't been in Egbert's pants?"

"Um, you," John said, emerging from the bedroom at the end of the apartment fully dressed, brows drawn together. "If I remember, drunkenly groping at a graduation party for 'experimentation' doesn't count as getting in my pants, idiot."

Dave sniffed, defensive. "There was also a blowjob in that equation, thank you very much."

John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and then you passed out and Rose had to literally carry your drunk ass home."

They both grinned at each other, reliving the memory. Good times. That hadn't been his first blowjob (some chirply blonde girl who showed up to classes drunk and had weekly confrontations with Rose where they bonded over gay wizard smut held that record in pink-manicured hands) but it had been his first sexual encounter with a guy, and honestly, even though it hadn't been terribly great, he was glad it had been with Egderp.

Dave spent the rest of his day dicking around the old apartment with his brother, complaining about his shitty animes and playing the awful video games he'd missed so much and watching his stupid brother get drunk. By the time John got home at 9:30, Bro was tipsy and stupid and as soon as it became clear that John wasn't going to let him grope him in front of Dave, he excused himself and went to pass out in the other room, leaving the futon to the boys.

They spent the night with movies on in the background, swapping stories about college and their friends (John went to the same college as Vriska, Eridan and Feferi) and their friends' love lives. It was girly, and it was stupid, and Dave had missed it so much that it was hurting, missed having a best guy friend who wasn't always wrapped up in coding obligations up to his eyeballs (and a best girl friend who was scary and blind and ate all of his food).

"So, okay, you have to promise you won't tell Sollux that I said this, right," John began, only a little drunk by this point and having just finished telling Dave all about Spiderbitch's apparent thing she had going on with Tavros. "But, did you know that Eridan's, like, pining for him?"

Dave raised an eyebrow, pausing around the third beer bottle he'd promised he wouldn't have. "What, like, kismesissitude?"

John shook his head, wild excitement swimming in his eyes. "No, like. Red.  _Really_ red."

"Shit," Dave said, leaning back and thinking about it. Yeah, this was kind of a big thing. "Do they even still talk? Sollux hasn't talked about him, in like... I don't know. Been a while. Thought they hated each other. Didn't they hatedate or something back in High School?"

John shrugged, waving a hand noncommitally. "I dunno, probably, yeah. But Eridan talks about it, like, all the time to Fef and I. He's really hung up on it, it's actually really cute. From what he talks about, I'd figure they talk pretty much every night. I mean yeah, he still thinks he's a giant tool, but... it's like he's  _his_ tool y'know? Like Eridan wants to just curl up in the sheets with him and talk about what an asshole he is while they exchange saliva and wedding vows."

"Wow, shit," Dave said again, but he was grinning this time. "Man, I'm totally telling Sollux."

"Don't tell him it was me who said something though," John pleaded, eyebrows knotting together.

Dave made a noise. "Who the Hell else am I meant to tell him said it, Eridan? Because don't you think it'd be weird if I was just like, oh hey, I went to visit my brother over the weekend and your ex-blackrom-boyfriend now quadrant-confusion-ass-buddy was there and told me that he's flushed for you? Man, no. I'll just tell him, he won't care."

"Eridan will!"

"Man fuck Eridan."

"Well, now, that might be Sollux's job," John said, and gave a wink. He and Dave both spent the next five minutes laughing about it.

Dave spent the next day being a basic lethargic asshole, mooching off of his brother's cheetos (fuck, he hated cheetos, he'd missed this so much, college was the worst and if he had to eat ramen one more time he was going to shoot someone) and beating John at video games. Despite doing practically nothing, by the time Bro and John were drunk enough to start getting touchy feely and he felt the need to kick himself out of the apartment and go back home (it was like nine at night, too, fuck them) he was exhausted, almost falling asleep both in the cab and on his flight, having to apologize a number of times for almost crashing head first into the shoulder of the seadweller girl seated next to him. (She had a british accent and kept telling him it was alright, despite clearly being annoying, and went back to texting.)

He stumbled back onto campus at something like four in the morning, trying to be quiet as possible as he shuffled back to his room and felt blindly in the dark for the bed, crawling over to his side and barely getting out of his shoes and shades before he collapsed face first on the pillows and fell asleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only person who really hates Karkat Vantas is Karkat Vantas, alternatively titled: The Reason Karkat Still Wears Long Sleeves and Why Adventure Time Is The Most Romantic Show in the World.

Karkat spent the next two days of his life feeling like a literal piece of shit.

There'd been no  _real_ reason for him to be so pissy at Dave; like, okay, yeah, the guy was a bit of an asshole and if he hadn't made Karkat take the sopor and play truth or dare in the first place then he wouldn't have to miss class until Wednesday, but that didn't mean that he'd done it on purpose. Karkat had been unreasonable.

And then he'd woken up alone.

When Dave wasn't back by 12, we went to see Terezi to see if she knew where he was, and then Sollux. Neither of them knew where he'd went, so Karkat went back to their dorm room and felt sorry for himself until 5, when he logged onto Pesterchum and sorted through every one of his contacts who knew Dave. He'd gotten absolutely nowhere until he was down to the e's, and one ectoBiologist was quick to stomp out his worries and tell him the Dave was absolutely fine and was just spending the weekend with them.

Which of course made him feel worse.

He lumbered his way to the bathroom around 6 for a shower, not bothering with dinner, and tried to strip out of view of the mirror. The bathroom was small and the mirror was pretty big, though, so of course despite his lengths he ended up face to face with the gross mass of grey limbs and scars that he always tried to avoid.

There was a reason Karkat still wore long sleeved shirts.

All along his arms, from his shoulders to his wrists, along his stomach, his thighs, were kisses and claws and patches of pink and red and a slightly darker grey where the really old scars had raised and imprinted in skin, refusing to heal completely, marring him. He felt both ashamed of the scars and proud of them, tiny little conquests, bookmarks from countless days he hadn't died, disgusting and beautiful and embarrassing and brave. He got into the shower, preparing for a sting he was never used to not coming, this five week record still feeling like a five minute one. There was no sting and ache of a freshly opened cut because there  _wasn't_  a freshly opened cut, and as happy and as proud as that made him, there was still that longing ache in his gut to just accept what a worthless piece of shit he was and start indulging in the throes of self-harm again. Those days had been both punishment and reward for him, pain and anger that he lashed out on himself, all the while knowing there was a part of it that felt good, relieving, addictive. He tried to tell himself that those days were behind him. That the anti-depressants he'd taken and Kanaya being his unofficial psychiatrist had culled those days along with the one's he'd skipped dinner and thought about Dave until his eyes were puffy and his teeth were clenched.

He sat on this one particular night, dressed in a long sleeved black t-shirt with his zodiac sign on it and grey sweat pants in front of the TV, trying to pay attention to Adam Sandler's familiar attempts at getting Drew Barrymore to love him again and again, but the picture in front of him kept blurring and he kept sighing and placing a hand on his defiantly empty stomach.

He figured he could jack some of Strider's ramen again, or even venture down to Terezi's room and ask if she wanted to go grab something before everywhere closed. He had money. He had resources. Yeah, as much as he didn't want to admit it, this was purely self-punishment. 

His eyes were red and sore by the time he felt tired enough to sleep, having cried and gotten angry enough times about how much this was reminding him of High School. Pining after Dave- even though that's  _not_ what he was doing right now- and getting angry about how much of an effect the idiot cool kid had on his life. His jaw ached and his stomach screamed but he forced himself over to the bed, flopping down and crawling under the covers. Something felt wrong, and after a moment of lying there and contemplating what it could be he discovered that it was the sopor packet's absence from under the pillow, and the new matress. He wondered when that had happened. Probably when he was in class yesterday, he realised, and then after a momentary thought occurred, he crawled out of bed and dug his fingers under the sheets to lift them off and reveal the matress. Which, of course, had on it a transparent mattress topper full of sopor.

He spent the next fifteen minutes of his life crying about how he had probably fucked up bad enough to have ruined any chance of them being friends now. Which, as much as he told himself he hated to admit it, was something he really, really wanted.

Karkat slept for fourteen inconsistent hours of the worst night he'd had since arriving at this stupid college and did not leave his room once the next day. He showered twice and did all of his course work and homework for the forseeable future, then spent the rest of the night on his laptop, talking to Gamzee on Pesterchum and watching awful YouTube reviews of both old and upcoming romantic movies which he had not seen all of already. (And if he hadn't, he'd seen the previews twice.)

He was in bed by eleven thirty, but he couldn't really sleep.

He drifted. He dreamed. There were no nightmares, all of his dreams lazy and strange and meaningless as he faded from conscious to dazed to out of it. One time, when the fuzzy red numbers of the digital clock next to his and Dave's bed read 4:02, he either dreamed or witnessed the door opening and a dark figure stumbling in, not bothering to turn on the light. The figure stubbed his toe almost immediately and crashed into the door, hissing a few swears under his breath and closing the door behind him, sort of limping. He came around to the other side of the bed, and after a quick thump of shoes and clatter on the nightstand, collapsed dramatically to the bed and stopped moving. Karkat fell back asleep and didn't wake up again.

When he did wake up, however, it became quickly apparent that last night had not been a dream, as now snoozing peacefully in bed next to him (or, more appropriately, under him, as he was pretty tightly wrapped around the shallow breathing boy) was Dave, looking as completely conked out as he had ever seen him.

Karkat pulled away and sat up immediately, running his hands through his hair and rubbing his eyes, guilty for some reason. He looked back down to Dave, skeptical of his actually being this out of it and asleep, basically unmoving save for his relaxed and even breathing and occasional light snore. Dave was pretty like this, he thought, trying not to think too much about the fact that he was thinking it. Shut up, smooth face, no shades. You could see his freckles, his eyelashes. He wasn't smirking or putting on a blank face, he was just... vulnerable. Karkat went and took a shower and changed into some slightly more decent clothes, which was to say, a white shirt and then an open plaid shirt over jeans.

When he came out of the bathroom, steam following him, Dave was up and wearing his shades again, sitting on the couch and watching cartoons over a bowl of lucky charms. There was another bowl on the coffee table next to him, and Karkat kind of figured that Dave hadn't intended it for himself.

He sat down cautiously, not looking at his roommate, and wordlessly took the bowl and started to eat from it. They didn't talk for a while, just ate in silence, Karkat's mind somewhere else. It took him quite some time to actually tune into what was on the TV, and when he did, he snorted.

"Adventure Time, seriously? Like that's not the fucking weirdest kid's show to ever grace the shitty world of human television programs."

Dave made a defensive noise. "Adventure Time's the shit, man. And come on, this is the genderbent episode, this is literally the best one. Fiona kicks some major ass, yo, like no kidding."

"Someone's doing some major something, and I can tell you it's not ass kicking," he scoffed, pointing a finger at the TV. "Look, see that. Gay. Gay gay gay gay gay. You can't look at those two and tell me there's not some homoerotic subtexty shit going on."

"What, which ones?"

"The vampire and the... bubblegum one," Karkat said, gesturing his finger again.

Dave laughed, and they jumped into an intricate discussion of the episodes Karkat had seen and the fact that Dave had seen all of them (it was not ironic, it had never been ironic) and pretty soon they were both laughing and making fun of each other, and Friday was almost forgotten. Almost.

Eventually, things ran their course and it fell silent between them again. Karkat played with the sleeves of his shirt, figuring it was pretty much a now or never kind of deal. "Just so you know," he grumbled, "I'm, uh, sorry and shit. For Friday. I was kind of a huge asshole and you didn't deserve that. And I'm, um, happy to have you home, I guess."

He saw Dave grin in the corner of his eye. "This is home, is it?"

Karkat tried to force away the redness of his cheeks, but of course Dave had already seen it. "You know what I mean, asshole."

"Yeah, I know," Dave said, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back on the couch. "But, I don't know. This place is kind of like home. Feels that way sometimes, anyway."

It was quiet again, but this time not for very long.

"How was your brother's?"

"You talk to John?"

"Yeah," Karkat scratched the back of his neck. "Um, yeah. Sorry. I was a little bit worried, so I thought I'd talk to some of your shitty friends to see if they knew anything. Which they didn't, by the way, good going disappearing for an entire weekend without telling anyone."

Dave shrugged. "Figured you were pissed at me and could use your own space. It's all good. I did walk in on John and my brother having sex, though, so that kind of sucked."

Karkat wrinkled his nose. "Oh, gross."

Dave nodded, affirmative. "John bottoms from the top."

"Oh,  _gross,_ okay, fuck, I give, just- stop, ugh!"

Dave was laughing, and for the first time, kind of breathy and smiley, Karkat listened. His laugh was still the same as it had been, carefree and musical and nice and  _real,_ not like the rest of him had been at times, so fake and practised and mechanical. This was the Dave that Karkat not only tolerated, but actually liked, dorky and genuinely cool in his own way, funny and awkward and weird just like him. 

The next time the silence dropped, Dave was the one to fill it. "So, um, I hope you don't... like, take this in the wrong way or something, but... do you think we could be friends? I won't be an asshole, cross my heart. And seriously, there's a whole list of reasons you should want to all up and be my best friend, like where do I even begin. Firstly, I will totally let you steal my food and play my video games, and I'm so used to Terezi doing it that I won't even give you shit for it, like, ever. So that's a giant pro. Secondly, despite the fact that I bitch about them, I will watch any cinematic train wreck you want me to, and I won't bitch about it in front of you if you ask me not to. Thirdly, being my friend means-"

"Alright."

Dave's jaw closed and opened again. "Wait, what?"

Karkat rolled his eyes, relaxing back against the couch. "Yeah, alright. Let's be friends. We're roommates, it makes sense not to be at each other's throats. And I don't hate you, so you don't have to act like you're walking on eggshells not to piss me off. I'm just a... pissy guy, I guess. So sorry, that's not your fault."

"So, you really want to try being friends with me?" Dave asked, unsure, and this was just making Karkat feel worse, had he really been so much of an asshole that Dave couldn't believe he genuinely liked him? 

"Yeah, asshole," Karkat said, and nudged him. "And I  _will_ steal your food and games, but I'd do that even if we weren't friends, so."

Dave fist pumps the air. "Shit, this has got to be, like, first base or something. I am going to tell the whole internet about it. I've done it, I've won your heart."

"Yeah, yeah, loser, shut up."

"How about we go and do something to kick off this sweet friendship of ours?" Dave suggests, grinning furtively at the Cancer. "Like, okay, shit, did you know that there has been a cinema five minutes from campus for like thirty years now?"

"No, I didn't know that, actually," Karkat admitted, raising a brow. "Why, do you want to go?"

Dave snorted. "No, I want to have intricate discussions about the paint job done on it. Yeah, I want to go, asshat. What's say you and I jimmy on down there and see if it's one of those places that still plays twelve year old Leonardo DiCaprio movies."

Hell yes, Karkat was up for that. He contemplated whether or not he should play it cool, and gave up, a dorky grin on his face. "That actually sounds really, really fun. Yeah, hold on, I'll go get money. Do you want to grab lunch afterwards, too?"

Dave fanned himself, standing up with him. "Shit, I should get changed, this is turning into a really intricate date, man."

Karkat rolled his eyes, but chose not to point out that it wasn't a date, because that was kind of implied behind Dave's sarcastic tone. 

Five minutes later Dave was wearing a red shirt and jeans that, oh dear, Karkat definitely did not notice hugged his legs with a vice grip, and they were out the door and leaving campus.

The cinema was quite literally a six minute walk around the corner from campus, next to a cute little series of family diners that lay adjacent to the crappy little minimall this town had to offer. It bordered right near the city, so here was kind of the crap, cheapo end of the better of Chicago's most recent decade's infastructural upgrades. 

They spent a grand total of fifteen minutes trying to decide what movie to see (there were no Leonardo DiCaprio movies, but there was, infact, You've Got Mail and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World playing.) Dave was adamant about  _not_ seeing the best Meg Ryan movie in existance for whatever stupid reason that had rotted his thinkpan to nothing, and Karkat had never seen Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and was skeptical of the apparent romance that Dave kept talking about. Mostly it just looked like a dumb band/action movie, but after  _fifteen minutes_ of arguing this point, he gave in and let Dave drag him to the counter to get tickets for it.

Nobody in the damned world apparently came to see romantic comedies at eleven o'clock on a Monday morning five minutes from a college campus, so the cinema was completely empty. They sat right in the middle and fought over who got to hold the popcorn until it started.

Dave apprently hadn't been kidding when he'd said he'd seen the movie a million times, and started mouthing the words right away, not stopping until Karkat shoved a bunch of popcorn in there and shooshed him, trying to turn his full attention to the screen. It wasn't long that he found he'd gotten really invested in the plot, cursing every bad thought he'd had about this to begin with, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't notice Dave watching him a little. He'd slid his glasses up on top of his head in the dark cinema, so it wasn't like Karkat could really get a good glimpse of his eyes, but there was no way he was trying, either, because pretty much every time he glanced Dave's way the human was glancing his way, too.

It was embarrassing, especially having to then reach into his lap every time he wanted popcorn, but he told himself that Dave was just watching for his reactions to the movie. Yeah, just... staring and waiting.

The movie had just descended into the surprisingly heartbreaking world of dark and depressing with Roxy Richter's absence and the sad world that was relationship troubles, when Dave moved suddenly, yawning quietly and stretching a bit as he did. And then his arm kept moving. And kept moving. It was pretty much draped across Karkat's shoulders when he asked, "What are you doing?" And Dave froze and pulled away, muttering something that sounded like "nothing". Karkat went back to watching the movie.

After it was finished, Karkat decided he hated it for the simple reason that it was really, really great, and curse the guy who wrote it and the horse he rode in on. (Apparently his name was Bryan. Wow. What a dick.) 

As they were walking out of the theatre, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, almost surprised with the ease with which he was speaking to Dave, already ranting and raving about what could have been done differently in the movie and how he was definitely going to have to read the comics now.

"I mean, shit, you'd think if it had been a troll movie there'd been a little more attention paid to the obvious black flirting going on between Roxy and Ramona, but no, that's totally left out and we never see my favourite character again? Bullshit. What a bullshit movie. I want all of the merchandise I can buy and also the comics. We should get the comics."

"I'd totally offer to lend them to you," Dave said, sounding a little guilty. "But they're actually back at my Bro's. Ah, I should have gotten them while I was there, shit."

Karkat shrugged. "Eh, you didn't know. Didn't know that the theatre was going to be playing it, or that it would  _totally wreck_ me. Fuck. I'm still not over Wallace, Wallace is great."

"Yeah man, Wallace is my spirit animal."

"'Cause he's gay?"

Karkat stopped, not having meant for it to come out like that, but Dave just shrugs, laughing a little. "Yeah, probably. I don't know, I always thought it was because of his subtle and classy lack of clothing."

Karkat snorted, feeling better that he had not offended his friend, and whoa, were they really being friends right now, was that for real? "There is nothing subtle  _or_ classy about your lack of clothing, Strider."

Dave shrugged. "Hey, I can't help being painstakingly handsome."

"More like  _lame_ stakingly."

"Oh my God you are such a dork."

They stopped outside the theatre, kinding of just standing there a moment. Karkat's stomach felt weird, and he was giddy; it had been so long since he'd just let himself relax like this, and all of his friends had always been either way too condescending or way too avoidant to want to bother with him for more than a few minutes, so he really didn't know how to feel about this. The sky was bleeding browning leaves from above them, the start of fall slowly divering into something colder. Karkat's gaze fell to the family diners not twenty metres from where they stood.

"Do you want to go get lunch?" He asked carefully, hopefully- because if Dave had changed his mind, he totally and definitely did not care one bit, and would just go back to keeping a distance and working their friendship around perhaps mutual affinity for Scott Pilgrim. He wouldn't push himself on Dave or spend so much time around him that one would hate the other. He wouldn't ruin this.

To his delight, Dave simply shrugged and said, "Yeah man, I'm buying."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank you all very very much for all of the nice comments and kudos and asks on my tumblr, because you're all cutie butts and every single comment I get makes my day in ridiculously nerdy ways. (No like seriously, I show up to class still talking about what cool cats everyone on ao3 is, like whoa you guys.) So um yeah, thank you all very much and I hope I'm keeping my promise of updating regularly to your standards! :)


	10. Chapter 10

They chose a diner at random, a crappy almost-replica of Olive Garden if it chose to have a lovechild with Burger King, and sat at one of the booths near the back. There were a few other people scattered around, but no one really looked like they had come out of their way to make the trip here; a twenty-something year old blonde girl in sweats, picking at a basket of fries while she hung her head gloomily over a book, an old guy sipping forlornly at a milkshake, a young couple holding hands while they waited for the staff to get them their food.

It wasn’t long before they fell back into the rhythm of things, the same previous banter as the sofa, the lobby, the theatre when Karkat wasn’t so engrossed in the movie, which, don’t get him wrong, Dave thought was probably the most adorable thing, like, ever. There’d been more than one occasion on which he thought he might have been caught staring, but since the smaller said nothing, he figured he was in the clear.

They both ordered the same vaguely greasy-sounding burger and discussed the probable lives of the other people in the diner, from their first break ups down to their most recent troubles in life. They kept joking and talking and Dave was actually making him  _laugh,_ and oh fuck he was so far gone and in love with him, fuck fuck fuck he really wanted to kiss him but he can't do that, of course, so he just sat there and suffered and yet he just kept going, kept encouraging him to laugh and trying to pry them out of him, unable to hide the splitting smile that always resurfaced every time Karkat tried to hold it in or covered his face. His laugh was really cute, Dave realised, once their meals came and the troll almost choked on a sip of his milkshake when Dave made a snide remark about their waitress. More than once he had snorted, and looked absolutely mortified of the fact, and almost every time he had practically been giggling, this uncontrollably girly sound that was obviously involuntary, because it just made him blush and try to stop, which then, of course, only made him laugh harder.

They stayed there for longer than they had intended to, for at least an hour even after their meals were finished. When they weren’t bonding over an apparent mutual hatred for people (and shit, Dave had known he was a generally angry person, but he hadn’t known he was as disgusted by people and their stupidity on quite such a similar level as Dave) they talked about practically everything, from classes to friends to High School and everything in between. Neither of them mentioned the more pressing part of High School, the elephant at the end of the pier in the room, and it was  _almost_ in an obvious way that they glossed over the subject. There was something less guarded now, he thought, about the way Karkat was talking to him, like he’d actually been making a conscious effort to hate Dave before now. He wouldn’t put it past the guy, but still, did that mean that he hadn’t really hated him at all? He didn’t want to hope. Didn’t want to hope that Karkat actually honed feelings for him—and had since High School, like John had said, but now really wasn’t the time to be deeming anything that came out of Egbert’s mouth reliable—and that all of what had previously gone on between them since his arriving at the college had been an act of defiance, of repressed feelings or blatant refusal to vulnerability… but it was unlikely. So unlikely, in fact, that just thinking about it had Dave’s stomach flipping in childish hope, and he kept having to mentally shake himself free of the feelings so that he could keep up a proper conversation and not completely fly off the handle into a world of uncool. Which had probably already happened.

“Hey, do you think it’s as stupid as I do that they’re suspending us until Wednesday, or am I just taking it too personally?”

Dave looked up from his folded hands on the table. Karkat was still relaxed against the back of his seat, but he now wore more of a frown. The blonde blew a bit of air out of puffed cheeks. “Well, I mean. Okay, so I get where they’re coming from. Terezi’s parties are loud and this is a college and all that. But yeah, Wednesday’s a bit unfair. I mean, shit, now we have a whole other day of wasted money and fuck all to do.”

“We could go hang out again,” Karkat said, and then looked a little flustered with himself and looked away. “I mean, we don’t have to, and I totally get it if I’m annoying and you’ve had enough of me, because I one hundred per-fucking-cent get where you’re coming from, but yeah. If you wanted to. I don’t have plans or anything.”

With every word, Dave’s face stretched just that little bit more into a smile, and by the time Karkat had stopped talking he had a pretty huge grin on his face. Adorable. He leant back in his seat and stretched, trying to pass the grin off as a nonplus sort-of-amused thing. “Yeah man, sure. I don’t have plans either. Although…” He sighed momentarily. “Fuck, yeah, I should probably actually finish my homework. There’s a shittone and I literally have not even batted an eyelid at it.”

Karkat shrugged. “I could help.”

Dave paused, raised his brows at him. Was he seriously volunteering to sit around and do homework with him?

Karkat quickly corrected himself, folding his arms and rolling his eyes. “Don’t cream your fucking panties, princess, I’m not suddenly going out of my way to do good deans and stroke your obnoxious friendship boner or whatever the fuck else.  I just. I don’t have plans either, I guess, and I am sure as Hell not going to step foot outside the dorm room unprotected from an onslaught of blind law-student and antisocial hacker loser, so I’ll probably be hanging around the room anyway. Might as well do something useful and help your sorry ass with homework.”  
Dave shrugged, trying to hide the grin that was slowly sliding into place anyway. He coughed and attempted to correct his expression into something less lame. Twice. “Yeah, okay. Cool, I guess.”

Karkat nodded, agreeing. “Cool.”

It was a pretty cool exchange.

They left the diner when it started getting darker and it became quickly apparent that they would need to go home and have dinner sometime. They continued to talk as they went, gossiping like two teenage girls the whole way up to their room.

“Hey, I never did get to ask you how your brother’s was.”

Dave put his hands in their respective pockets and shrugged. “Sure you did.”

“No, but,” Karkat was shaking his head, “properly, I mean. I was a huge ass to John last time I saw him, how is he?”

Dave shrugged again, and stopped at their room to unlock the door, rummaging around in his pocket for his key. “He’s cool, I guess. I mean, aside from getting his kink on with my brother, he’s taking classes five to six days a week and working two jobs because he feels bad not paying rent.”

“Jesus, he’s an idiot. Isn’t your brother, like, wiping his ass with Benjamin Franklins these days?”

Dave laughed, closing the door behind them when they were both inside. “If you’re asking if his porn business is still making him a fucktonne of cash then yeah, he’s pretty rich nowadays. Especially since he doesn’t have to pay for my mooching ass anymore. I mean, aside from him paying three quarters of my tuition and sending money every month.”

“It must be so hard to be you,” Karkat commented, and if Dave didn’t know any better, he’d swear it was meant to be as flirtatious as it sounded. Karkat swatted his hip on the way past and went to their kitchen, sifting through the cupboard for something Dave hoped wasn’t ramen.

“Shit’s difficult, like whoa. I can’t even begin to explain the troubles I face in just my day to day life. It’s hard having this many fans, y’know?”

Karkat stopped searching just to tip his head back and put a hand to his forehead. “ _Swoon._ ”

He took out two packets of ramen noodles and went to boil some water.

They ate in front of the tv, still making light chatter, which of course gradually turned to less light gossip about every person they'd each ever come into contact with since high school.

"No, see, you're remembering Sollux all wrong," Dave chided,  _tsk_ ing a few times under his breath and leaning back against the sofa. "From what I recall, there was a very long period in which Aradia had him whipped to the nines."

Karkat almost choked on a laugh, remembering. Sollux had dated her for almost an entire year of his high school life, during which his minecraft and coding obsessions came to an almost complete halt. No one had ever been able to do that as well as Aradia. Hell, Dave knew for a fact that she  _still_ harrassed him via weekly phonecalls to keep his shit together and get some sunlight every once in a while. He admired her for that, he really did; the only downside was the fact that around the time they broke up, and all of the spotlight turned to Sollux and his emotional traumas (it had been senior year; there were emotional traumas regarding relationships going on between the likes of Sollux and Aradia and Eridan and Feferi and practically everyone) Dave himself had been going through his own problems, most having to do with a particularly smartass troll boy who wore long sleeves and had messy hair and wore this look like he had no idea how special he was.

Karkat scoffed, looking fond of the memory of how Sollux had been back then. "Doesn't mean the asshole left his room often enough to be classified a legible fucking member of society. Look at him now, for example. The only time he pulls himself from his room is so that he can go to his stupid technology classes and then sit around talking about what a great douchelord he is with all of his qualifications, only to then crawl back to his room and return to doing absolutely fuck all. I mean, Jesus, when do you think the last time he actually even got a date  _was?_ "

Dave remembered so suddenly what he had been trying to that he practically barked a laugh, shaking his head. "Shit, I forgot to tell you. Oh man, I still can't believe it. I just. Guess what?"

Karkat's eyes had been narrowing with each word. "...What?"

His grin was face-splitting. "Eridan's red for Sollux."

There was no pause this time. "What."

Dave's shit-eating grin just widened. "Dude. I'm not even kidding. Eridan. He's red for Sollux."

"That... Ampora? _Why?_ " His tone was demanding, disgusted, and he didn't even have time to think about why before Dave was waving his hands and trying to defend the stupid pompous sea-dweller.

"No, no, it's like, they're friends now. And I totally agree with the whole 'ew oh my god why eridan's such a douche' thing because yeah, the guy's an ass. But, granted, he's sort of an endearing ass, or at least that's what Sollux thinks, because I think the two are a lot closer now than he's letting on."

Karkat grimaced, not wanting to admit that Dave was right about this. He didn't think he  _really_ hated Eridan, or at least not all that much since the guy hadn't done anything to him personally, and more-so, though he  _certainly_ didn't want to admit it, his annoyance was a little bit of a projection of his own love life. How dare Sollux go and find a cute, rom-com worthy romance why he was stuck here down in the mud mulling over a crush that wasn't even- and  _hey,_ where had that thought come from?

Dave went on talking about how after High School they started arguing and how arguing turned to video games and so on and so forth, but Karkat was too lost to his own thoughts now to really listen. There was no  _crush,_ he thought, the thoughts getting just a tad bit violent a tad bit too fast, and even more importantly, there was no grounds for a crush in the first place. He certainly didn't  _Dave_ know anyone worthy of having a  _Dave_ crush on, and even if he did  _Dave_ crushes were stupid and childish and he definitely didn't have a crush on Dave!

"...and then there's the fact that he- whoa, dude, are you okay? You're hyperventilating."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine-" he swatted Dave's hand away when it came up to feel his forehead, cheeks burning. When Dave only then continued to stare at him, brows drawn, he scrambled to his feet and almost fell over. "I just... need some air. Fuck. Be back in a minute."

He practcally stumbled through the front door.

Once he was out there, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, bracing himself against the wall.

What. The fuck. Was that.

Karkat stood there for a while trying to figure out what to do. He couldn't exactly go back in there right now, since he had burst out so dramatically. So firstly, he needed a story as to why he left. Preferably one that wasn't "I considered having a crush on you and my body flipped out, sorry." It was late, and Kanaya didn't like to be disturbed after hours. Sollux would be too busy playing video games... or talking to his maybe-matesprit, apparently... he grimaced. That only left one person, and everything else aside: he did not want to talk to that person.

Terezi was grinning when she answered the door.

"Karkat, you smell like emotional anguish and desperation. Have you been crying?"

He checked. Twice. "No," he answered, and shook his head, resisting the urge to pull at it. "Fuck, I just- can you come for a walk? I need to talk to you."

She made a little noise under her breath like she was thinking, but one look/sniff/whatever at the expression on his face and she just grinned and shut the door behind her, thrusting her hands into her pockets and falling into a walk with him.

"So what's up?"

Karkat took lots of breaths. "Say you had a crush on someone-"

"You have a crush on Dave."

He ground his teeth together, refusing to add fuel to her fire. " _Say_ you had a crush on someone. How would you know?"

She gave him a kind of 'are you fucking kidding me' stare, and when it became apparent that he was completely serious she just sighed, looking ahead again. "Well, firstly, if your super cool and romantically experienced friends says you have a crush on someone, you probably do. Secondly, well, then there's a bunch of stuff. Are you attracted to him... them?"

Karkat glowered at the floor. "What a stupid question. Of course I'm not-"

"Well, think about his hair. Now his face. Now his shoulders. Now the rest of him. Are you- you're totally blushing, oh my God."

"No, I'm not- I'm not blushing, there's no blushing going on here, what the fuck," his teeth were bared now, because of course he'd thought about his hair and his face and his shoulders and the rest of him and of  _course_ he was blushing insanely now.

Terezi grinned, but otherwise chose not to comment about the very obvious redness of his cheeks, choosing to go on with her explanation. "So, the jury can conclude that the accused  _is,_ in fact, attracted to Dave Strider. Moving on. Would you kiss him?"

"I don't want to-"

"OBJECTION! Do not avoid the question, Karkles!"

He sighed. He glared. And through his teeth, he said, "Yes."

Terezi smiled like she'd just won a fucking lottery. "Excellent! Moving on. Can you see yourself pursuing a relationship with him?"

He stopped walking. "No- shit, see, that's the thing, Terezi, I can't... it's  _Dave._ "

She blinked. "And?"

"And..." And? "And... there's a lot of history. Even if we could put aside the fact that he is absolutely  _infuriating_ and starting a relationship with him would be really really stupid... it's  _Dave._ He's him, y'know. I mean, not the irony and cool-kid bullshit him, but the  _him_ him. The him that genuinely likes dorky movies and cries when he thinks someone he cares about is in trouble, and the him with the really pretty eyes and the amazing charisma and the ability to get anyone he'd ever want... I'm just me." _  
_

He expected Terezi to come back at him with something snarky. _Wanted_ her to come back at him with something snarky, shit, at least that would make him feel normal and a little less humiliated. But she just continued to stare, looking absolutely horrified and sad and about a million other things. She reached out to touch his arm and reeled back twice. Finally, she gave up and sighed. "Karkat, you're an idiot. I don't know how else to word that, so yeah. You're a huge, fucking idiot, and so is Dave, so you pretty much deserve each other.  _He likes you,_ you moron. Jeez, how hard is it to get that past your broken and battered think pan?"

"He doesn't..." Karkat sighed, not knowing where to go with this. "Whatever happened in High School is over. He's clearly moved on, and... so have I. I mean, I will, once I get over this... fuck, whatever this is. I should probably just stop being so dramatic about it and start being a decent _human_ being, huh?"

"That couldn't hurt," she was watching him carefully with those terrifyingly glassy blank eyes, brows drawn together. She pursed her lips and gave him a playful shove after a while. "Aw, lighten up, will you? It's not all doom and gloom. Just think of it this way: if, somehow, I'm wrong about Dave liking you back... actually, there's no end to that sentence. He definitely likes you back."

Karkat pushed her off of him, but played it out as a joking gesture, and smiled at her afterwards. "Yeah, whatever. I'm sorry I dragged you out of your room for this."

She waved a hand at him dismissively. "Eh, whatever. It was getting stuffy in there anyway. You want me to walk you back to yours?"

He shook his head. "Actually, I think I'll go to the front office real quick... need to ask them something about the room."

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

"I really fail to see the problem here."

Karkat glared at the woman in front of him. "The  _problem,_ " he said through his teeth, "is that for the past couple of weeks I have been staying in a two-person dorm room with only one bed."

The woman nodded as if she understood completely. "But it's a double bed?"

Karkat ground his teeth together again. "Yes."

Smile. "Then. I don't see the problem."

Karkat sighed, regretting the decision to go to the front office about the bed situation already; maybe, if they had someone normal working at the desk at this time, instead of the twenty-something-year-old troll chick with the Japanese accent and the bitchy smile chewing gum like she was audtioning for a porno. He put both hands flat on the counter and tried to appear intimidating, even though he had to get on his tiptoes to lean over the desk properly. She was holding back giggles. "Look, don't you just... have a spare recuperacoon?"

She blew a bubble, which popped neatly and disappeared into her mouth again. Her expression barely moved at all. "No."

"Urgh!" Karkat threw his hands in the air, really beyond caring that he was making an idiot of himself. "A bed, then? Something? Jesus!"

The girl watched patiently, hands folded neatly in front of her. She titled her head and gave a wicked grin when he was done. "You appear to have a problem. Sharing a bed with your rommate. Then I must ask why you waited two weeks to say something."

Karkat's face turned bright red, he could feel it. And the bitch was smiling even bigger now, a sharp-toothed grin almost fit to rival Terezi's. He swallowed past a lump in his throat and tried to remain composed. "Because I assumed that this shitty school would pick its ass off of the ground and do something so I wouldn't have to, but apparent-fucking-ly not." He bet she had spare beds and spare recuperacoons shooting out of her ass and just wasn't telling him. "What's the policy on bringing in new furniture?"

She sighed, and ticked her fingers off as she spoke a practiced, mundane speech. "The college is not responsible for any damage to personal equipment. This includes furniture. New furniture can be brought in from outside resources. However, it has to be approved first. The college does not provide its students with any new furniture. This is apart from what is already in their rooms. Are you satisfied now?"

"No," he said, curtly. "Why wasn't their a goddamn recuperacoon in there in the first place?"

A shrug, and the ghost of a grin flickered across the girl's face. "The room is in human quarters. There was previously only one occupant. You seem awfully on edge. I suggest you chill out and get laid. Go and fuck your roommate in your shared bed."

Karkat would have reeled back a great deal more if he hadn't been suddenly preoccupied with pointing an accusing finger at the girl. " _That_ is unprofessional! Are you even allowed to say shit like that? You're not. I could get you and your stupid immature wriggler sense of humour fired."

Oh God, he was becoming Kankri.

Instead of looking scared like he wanted her to, she just looked bored, and eventually, sighed and starting tapping away obnoxiously at the keys on the ancient computer in front of her. "I'll put you down on the waiting list for a new room if you'd like. In the troll quarters."

"No, don't do that," he said, sighing, almost immediately. He couldn't do that to Dave, especially not now that they'd established that Karkat didn't hate him. Bailing on him would kick that point in the ass, and really, it wasn't sharing the bed that bothered him. Moreso, it was guilt that came from a recent- _very_ recent, might he emphasize-epipheny about how he may or may not like Dave just a little like he did back in High School. And sharing a bed with him, indulging in... certain thoughts, waking up with his limbs wrapped around him... none of that was fair on Dave. And for fuck's sakes, he was just tring to be a decent human being for once here!

"You know what, forget it," he muttered, and left before the bitch could make a snide remark.

He would just... wing it, he thought, yeah. Wing it and act like everything was okay, like he hadn't just had the most awful realization of his life and-

Dave was shirtless when he got back.

He shut the door a little louder than he should have, whole body going rigid, and it only made his cheeks heat up more when Dave lifted his head to look at him, so he promptly placed it back down, curling his hands into fists and trying to act like nothing was wrong.

"Yo, you alright?" Dave ventured, quirking an eyebrow from behind his shades, and fuck, he couldn't lie to himself and pretend that the tightness in his stomach at that was hate anymore, not when Terezi had been so right and he was so wrong and everything was going to be very messy, now, unless he ignored whatever this was that he was feeling, because fuck if this was going to be a repeat of senior year for him.

"Yeah, of course I'm alright, why would I not be alright, I'm fucking dandy peachy fine," Karkat babbled almost incoherently as he went to get a shirt to change into for bed, because unlike Dave, he was  _not_ okay with simply lounging above the covers in red boxers with a husk-laptop in his lap.

"I dunno, maybe, 'cause, you like, stormed out before?" Dave said in a very condescending tone. When Karkat looked at him, he was met with a very unamused stare from behind the barrier of shades. He scoffed. "I didn't storm out, asshat, I..." Fuck, what had he been doing? "...remembered that Terezi needed help with an assignment. I ran down to make sure she didn't hate me for bailing on her, or whatever."

"Oh." 

That was literally it. Just 'oh', and Dave went back to reading whatever it was on his screen, face impassive as always. Karkat stared back at him dumbly before it occurred to him that he had been in the middle of getting changed. He turned away from Dave so that he could change his shirts quickly and yank down his pants without being embarrassed of all of the scars there, and then  turned to look at him hesitantly. "I, uh... also went down to the front office."

He looked up. "Thought you looked pissed. Was Damara on shift?"

"Who?"

"Never mind," Dave shook his head. "Why were you at the front office?"

"I wanted to see if they had any spare beds," he said cooly, watching for Dave's reaction, only he suddenly wished he hadn't because the first thing to cross Dave's face before it returned to its normal stoic nothingness was very blatant very clear  _hurt._ He cleared his throat and looked down again at his screen. "Oh," he said again.

"Don't 'oh', you jackass. They didn't, by the way, which is good, I guess..." Karkat had been crawling onto the bed and froze, caught on all fours with his abdomen stretched as he looked at Dave, suddenly aware that he was close enough to hear him breathing, to see the finely toned muscles in his skin tense and relax and rippled along the barely-there scars from God knows what kind of fighting. When he looked up to Dave's face, he found him staring back, or rather, staring at where Karkat's shirt rose up his midsection. He suddenly became aware of how ridiculously provocative the stance was and crawled under the sheets, embarrassed. "I mean, it's good because it means I won't have to haul another piece of furniture in here, not because I have a secret affinity with sleeping with you or anything."

"Wow, Karkat, you sure know how to talk to the ladies," Dave deadpanned.

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Why are you so offended?"

"Seriously, though, charming my pants off over here- oh wait, they're already off," he avoided the question. Karkat asked it again.

Dave sighed, and rolled his eyes, probably to make him seem less serious than he was. Karkat took a sudden immense pride in the fact that he knew this. "Look, I just... I'm not offended, I guess. I just thought that the sleeping arrangements were fine as they were. And no, not because I'm honing a creepy fetish for watching you sleep if that's what you were gonna ask, just because... shit, okay, I've always had really bad nightmares, and sleeping alone always made me sort of uncomfortable. I mean, I got used to it, because fuck if I was gonna be sharing a bed with a dude who smelled like sweat and the hard earned american dollars of creepy smuppet fans 24/7, but I still don't like it. And... for such a bony, angry asshat, you're kind of real fuckin nice to cuddle with."

Karkat stared. He blinked. Then, he went on to stare some more. Dave became uncomfortable quickly and looked up, trying to hide the fact that his cheeks had caught fire by giving that 'it's not even a big deal like whatever i'm such a coolkid' smile. "Well, since we shot the horse of cool dead with a gold-plated bullet and left him bound in electrical tape on the side of the road, I think it's fair to say that we just won't tell anyone what embarrassing things come out of Dave Strider's mouth after ten and call it a night, what do you think?"

Karkat hadn't really finshed staring, but he forced himself to snap out of it anyway, giving his head a tiny shake and offering Dave his best neutral expression. "I swear on the Bible I won't tell anyone that you're actually secretly in love with me," he vowed.

Dave nodded cooly. "Ditto."

Karkat had to smile at that, rolling over and laying down so that Dave wouldn't see, because it was ridiculous. Here he'd always made fun of Dave for the irony and the sarcasm bullshit and he was doing exactly that with Dave, telling the truth in a tone so that no one would believe it. It was ridiculous. And he didn't care.

After laying there for close to ten minutes and listening to Dave type away obnoxiously at that dumb laptop of his, Karkat gave up with a sigh and turned to face him. "Are you planning on going to sleep at all anytime soon?"

Dave pretended to think about it, and Karkat seriously considered punching him. "Nah, I'm good," Dave said finally. "Like I said: nightmares. Not even your cuddly ass could fix that. I'll sleep when I need to."

Having been going in the general direction of a frown, Karkat's expression suddenly softened, and he tried to convey as much sympathy for Dave as he could in that one look before he remembered who he was dealing with and just sighed angrily. "You should have said something, you obnoxious bulge-munching dick, I could have done something- shit, hold on."

He crawled out of bed to retrieve one of the remaining sopor packets, and a plastic teaspoon from the kitchen. He handed them both to Dave and looked at him expectantly.

"Dude," Dave said, expression flat. "I am not eating this shit."

"Come on, it's not like-" Karkat sighed and opened it for him, sticking the spoon in. "It's not like it's toxic, not if you only have a little. It's designed to stop nightmares, and if it isn't working under you, it'll probably work inside of you... okay, fuck, that came out a lot dirtier than I intended."

Dave snickered, and after a few more heavy moments under Karkat's expectant stare, sighed and gave up, spooning a lump of the goo into his mouth and wincing at the taste. He swallowed dramatically, and looked thoughtful. Karkat resited the urge to strangle him or kiss him or both. "Well?"

Dave shrugged, and laughed gently when he saw how pissed off that had made Karkat. "It's fine, dude, nothing huge... kind of tangy and bitter. And it feels weird in my chest, sort of warm, like whiskey."

Karkat had never had whiskey, so he was unsure of whether or not this was a good thing. Regardless, Dave spooned more into his mouth with a roll of his eyes and Karkat laid back down, satisfied.

Since the sopor, his dreams had been irritatingly irregular. They faded in and out of perception, like when you're not sure if you dreamt up a conversation or if it really happened, and he dreamt of both nothing in particular and the exact thing that was gnawing away at him at the moment. Meaningless and meaninful flashes of dreams, where he was holding hands with someone and drinking a chai latte and looking at Dave asleep on cotton sheets with a window open with venetian blinds drawn to show a scenery where it was always Fall. His dreams smelled like soap and sweat and spice and aftershave, a concoction of scents he'd long since given up trying not to relate instantly to Dave. He dreamt that he was running late for a class and he dreamt that Eridan and Sollux were standing together but not really talking; at one point, he could have sworn he was awake when he became aware of Dave crawling out of bed flushed in the face and breathing shallowly and make a bee-line for the bathroom, but dream Dave or real Dave was locked in there longer than he was conscious of the fact.

They spent the next day much the same as how they'd spent the previous one; lazy and stupid and nice. 'Homework' ended up meaning five minutes of study and five hours of dicking around with video games. This lazy and stupid and nice day became lazy and stupid and nice  _days_ where they would hang out after class and sit together with their friends at lunch and make fun of each other while trying not to smile now. Dave didn't try sopor again, and it only took Karkat a couple seconds to figure that this was probably because it had made him sick and that he hadn't dreamed him getting up in the middle of the night for the bathroom; what kind of sick, he had no idea, but didn't want to ask out of fear of embarrassing his friend, so he left it. They confronted Sollux about Eridan and ended up finding out that there was nothing going on between them  _yet_ because Sollux wasn't spilling any info but appeared to be red for Ampora anyway. The weeks passed like this, childish and fun, and it didn't take a genius for Karkat to slowly become more and more aware of the fact that he was really,  _really_ red for Dave, and shit if that didn't have him locking himself in the bathroom more often than not and just sitting there on the floor feeling sorry for himself and sometimes crying just out of sheer frutstration that this was so much like High School; only now he was eating three meals a day because Dave was eating with him and the scars on his wrists were faded and not dripping shamely red onto bleached white tiles.

Classes became a monotonous thing for him; he went to them, he threw himself into his classwork, he went back to his room and proceeded to do fuck-all in the way of actually practising his writing or doing his homework because he was either too busy feeling sorry for himself or doing something stupid with the reason he felt sorry for himself at all in the first place.

Things may have even been bearable, he thought.

If he hadn't started having those stupid dreams.

The first time it happened was just after they'd spent the evening arguing over how guitars were really easy to play, and Karkat had gone to play Dave's and fucked up royally at it, so Dave had just sighed and gone to stand behind him. It was innocent enough, really. He just put his hands on Karkat's and showed him where they needed to be, chest pressed against the troll's back and breath on his neck. He was still kind of thinking about it when he went to bed, and then his dreams got the best of him, sending him images of Dave's chest pressed flush against his back and his breath on his neck and his hand working him, his teeth biting him, skin touching.

He'd woken up both hard and wet and inches away from rutting against Dave's leg.

From then on, the dreams happened at least once every two or three nights, if not every night, and convincing himself that he was just both depraved and deprived and needed to get laid wouldn't work, either, because now he was at the same point he had been at in High School: he had never been laid, and didn't want to, not unless the person doing it was going to whisper dirty things in his ear with a slightly Southern accent.

Karkat was so far doomed it wasn't even funny.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *strums guitar* i suck at updating regularly so have some smut

Writing is the bane of every writer's existance.

"Hey man, I'm gonna go over to Sollux's, I'll be back later," Dave called, but the door was shut before Karkat even had a chance to respond.

Karkat muttered an 'okay' anyway but otherwise didn't look up from his husktop, brow creased in an eternal frown. The assignment was to pick a genre you were comfortable with and write a chapter as if it was straight from the middle of a novel, which would have been easy enough if he hadn't kept screwing up and starting the entire thing over. He was writing a romance, of course, something that tussled between erotic-romance and gothic-drama-romance (forbidden fruit kind of thing; troll and human on Alternia), because that was easy enough. 

The words 'he shouldn't have been there' glared back at him mockingly, singing their childish song of 'ha ha, how cliqued is this?' He tried to visualize the plot again in a purely strategic manner, considering the descent from their lingering eye sex to their hot and heavy making out to be as methodical as a regular plot timeline. He tried and failed six times to write it down.

Karkat closed his eyes, swearing internally. Things had been going like this for almost three weeks now; he was stressed to the breaking point, confinding in Kanaya's advice and Terezi's... well, he was sure  _she'd_ consider it advice, more than often now. This was so much like High School and it was  _slaying_ him. No really: the dirty dreams, the blatant anger at Dave for being the way he was, the uncomfortable feelings in his stomach whenever the asshole so much as  _looked_ at him, the slow realization that this went beyond one of those "oh, yeah, man, it's nothing, I don't mind if we never end up together but also wouldn't mind kissing your face" crushes and now, his inability to do homework due to excessive stress.

Sighing, Karkat leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. Fuck, he just needed to... visualize things, that was all. Frown easing, he slowly let himself slip into the world, thinking up quick names for his characters- Karter and Dean, yeah, that worked-and imagining if he himself were in the moment. Having snuck into the other's room, now staring at them across the room, chest heaving...

Karkat opened his eyes and began to type, slowly, not wanting to scare off the inspiration.

'Dean cast yet another forlorn glance at that whom had been his lover, and in them swam both pain and longing at once. "Why did you come back, then?" he accused, venom dripping from his words. Karter winced visibly, having caught the other end of the vicious tone even from halfway across the room. "Why did you even bother?" Karter looked up, then, expression grave. "Because I love you, you moron," he declared, and then at a moment's notice they were meeting halfway in the middle of the room and Dean was crushing their lips together.'

Karkat began to type a little faster, excited that this was going somewhere now, pouring all of his focus into it.

'Karter cried out with a strangled fervor and clung to the other as if his life depended on it, tilting his head to deepen the kiss and pouring into it all of the fear and the longing and the loneliness that had been building up for years now. Dean kissed back just as rabidly, tongue finding Karter's like it was seeing the sun for the first time. Dean tasted of fire and strawberries and smelled of sweat and soap, his blonde hair soft under Karter's fingers.'

Goodgoodgood this was going somewhere moremoremore

'With a grunt, Dean lifted Karter with his hands under his thighs and braced him against the wall, grinding their clothed erections together and panting with want. Karter cried out, tipping his head back against the wall and lifting his hips back, fingers tearing at the fabric on the back of his lover's shirt. Dean attacked his neck with kisses, strong and wet and warm, and removed both of their shirts in record time, revealing a lightly muscled pale chest littered with years of fighting and training. Karter bent his head to press sucky kisses all over, and, overcome with desire, Dave began to lift him off of the wall and take him over to the bed and'

Andandand

And...

He'd written Dave's name.

Holy shit.

Karkat deleted the document with one press of a button and pushed his chair away from the desk, fist on his mouth. That certainly hadn't been about fictional characters anymore.

Disgruntled, he looked down at his own problem, which was a steadily growing, slightly squirming lump in his pants that was threatening to stain red if he didn't get rid of it soon. His entire face burned up with the thought of it... with getting off in the room he shared with Dave. It should have felt normal, and Hell, Dave had probably done it a million times and oh God when did Karkat put his hand in his pants. 

He breathed through his nose roughly at the light, teasing feeling of stroking himself through his boxers but under his jeans, yanked his hand out after a minute and took in a shaky beath, raking both hands through his hair. No, God, that was fucked up, that surpassed the _meaning_ of fucked up because Dave was his friend and you weren't supposed to think about your friends naked while touching yourself in their room. Karkat began to shakily take his pants off. Dave wouldn't be back for a while, but he locked the door as a precaution; not because it would keep him out, but because he'd have longer to become decent if he heard keys rattling in the lock.

This was normal, he tried to tell himself as he grabbed a bucket and laid back on their bed, hand finding and stroking himself as his eyes squeezed shut and a groan ripped from somewhere deep inside of him. Normal guys did this, normal guys had to get off some times or they'd go crazy. 

Right, and he was sure normal guys also turned to thoughts of their roommate doing dirty things to them when they did it.

Breath coming in pants, eyes shut, Karkat could not filter his mind from the thoughts that rolled on; he imagined Dave walking in and finding him like this, Dave liking it, Dave taking his shirt off and crawling between his legs and giving a curious, hesitant lick at his nook.

" _Hh,_ " Karkat let out a soft noise when he moved his other hand lower, teasing the wet area there before sliding in and curling, getting a sort of rhythm going.

An appropriate chorus of "fuckfuckfuckfuck" followed the motions of lying on their shared bed and touching himself, and as he felt himself get close, he did not think about the retalliations of reaching over and bringing one of Dave's abandoned shirts to his nose, inhaling it.

He was going to Hell, he thought.

This is Dave's side of the bed, he thought, and then he was gone.

Karkat came crying out into his fist and Dave's shirt, almost missing the bucket he'd slid into place with him. When the aftershocks of his orgasm came rolling around and he was coming down from his high, he simply lay there breathing, Dave's shirt crumpled in his fist and his face absolutely flushed with humiliation and exhaustion. There was no way he'd be able to look Dave in the face when he got back, he thought.

It was close to ten minutes before he could even find half the incentive to motivate himself to get off of Dave's bed, and that was when someone in one of the other rooms thumped against something noisily and he panicked and thought it was Dave coming into the room, falling off of the bed with a half shout of the word 'fuck'.

He got up then, embarrassed, running his hands through his hair as he went to clean up; or, clean up the bucket, should he say, and put Dave's shirt back  _exactly_ as he'd found it. He didn't want to try and imagine Strider's face if he was even clued in slightly as to what Karkat had been doing with it.

He felt guilty enough as it was, glowering at the shirt once he'd put it back, just standing there for a long time before he gave up with a sigh and went back to his computer.

He was halfway through just about the shittiest and most generic story that the Earth had ever had the displeasure of witnessing when Dave came back, slamming the door harder than it needed to be and spinning Karkat around in his chair.

"Whoa, alright, just go ahead and grab me by the shirt, that's obviously the thing that needs to be done he-"

"Dude they're dating."

Karkat's mouth opened and closed stupidly. Finally, he said, "You've lost me."

"Dude," Dave shook his head, looking absolutely bewildered. "They're  _dating._ Actually, like, together, like- matesprits, or whatever."

Karkat raised an eyebrow, sitting up further in his seat now that Dave had backed up a bit, smoothing out his shirt. "I have no fucking clue who you're talking about, I hope you know that."

"Eridan and Sollux."

Karkat stopped. And just looked at him. "Wait, seriously?  _When?_ "

" _Right?_ Shit. Apparently it happened last night. They were talking on skype- and he's coming down to visit him at the end of next week, how kismet is  _that-_ and apparently Sollux couldn't wait to see him, so he was just like, shit man, I love you, and Eridan was like what, and Sollux was like huh, and then they-"

"Okay, Jesus, I can't understand a single thing you're saying when you ramble like that," Karkat chided, getting out of his seat to push Dave's head playfully as he went to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. "So, what, they're officially together or some shit?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Sollux wouldn't shut up about it. I probably would have been over there longer, actually, but he kicked me out literally just because he wanted to skype his boyfriend. What an asshole, right?"

"Love is sickening," Karkat agreed with a nod of his head, tipping it back to take a long drink of water. He wiped his chin when he was done, catching Dave looking at him and feeling embarrassed, but Dave was talking again before he could fathom some sarcastic reply to make himself feel better.

"Yeah, but you're into all that romance crap, aren't you?"

Karkat folded his arms and leant back against the counter, cheeks heating a little. "To some extent."

Dave nodded at the computer, deadpanning, "So what you're writing over there is just 'to some extent' then?"

Karkat took another sip, and then drawled out "yup", face as stoic as Dave's.

Dave nodded, better at keeping a straight face. "Hm."

"Hm."

Silence.

Then, Dave pounced for his laptop.

"Dave, don't!" Karkat jumped after him, and from then on it was a childish wrestle of Karkat shouting and Dave laughing hysterically, Karkat practically on his back trying to claw through to get the laptop out of his hands. Dave scrolled through the word document, casual as anything as he kept Karkat away with one arm, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. "Seriously, oh my fuck, if you have any decency left in that rusted fucking think-pan of yours, you will stop reading that right now, that is not for you, oh my God, Strider, seriously,  _Dave-_ "

"Wha-ha-ho," Dave drawled out, grin increasing. In one movement he had Karkat pinned on the bed, sitting on his back and almost crushing him as he went on to scroll through without the effort of pushing while he did so. Karkat squirmed relentlessly, choking and yelling insinuations about how he couldn't breathe, but Dave ignored him, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at the screen. "Does this descend into the world of  _erotica,_ Karkat?"

"No, fuck you it does not, give it back oh my God Dave please it's not even finished it's literally so awful please don't read it holy sh-"

" _Gay_ erotica," he commented as if Karkat hadn't spoken at all, and gave him a sly grin, winking once. "Very nice choice, KitKat, this piece of literature gets the Strider seal of approval right off the bat."

"Listen you asshole if you don't get off of me right now I will literally gut you in your sleep and strangle you with your own intestines-"

"'Good'," Dave read, pausing to clear his throat before continuing in a dramatic voice. "'Good boy,' the taller man whispered into his companions ear, riding out the sensations still of having him pressed flush against him. 'You're being such a good boy for me.'" Dave looked up again, raising an eyebrow. "Do you have a praise kink?"

Karkat had his head buried by this point, whining, "I don't even know what that  _is,_ " even though it came out muffled into the bedsheets.

"Well, you have it," Dave said decidely. He was quiet again as he continued reading.

"Whoa, this is actually kind of hot," he said after a while. "In a totally hilarious, ironic way. I mean, unless that wasn't what you were going for, in which case this is an A+ piece of smut and you should be given an award."

"Dave, oh my God, shut the fuck up," Karkat groaned into the mattress. "I said it was awful, didn't I?"

"Hey now, I never said that," Dave defended, and then came the sound of him putting the laptop to the side before he got off of Karkat. The troll rolled onto his back almost straight away, putting on a show of gasping for air. Dave rolled his eyes.

"Okay, so if you wanna finish writing your 'fifty shades of interspecies sex' thing, I have to write a paper. We could totally jam to some good music and eat skittles while we do it."

Karkat wanted to find something to make fun of, but the offer actually sounded really fucking appealing, so he just shrugged, putting his laptop back on the desk and climbing into his chair. "Yeah, whatever, sounds good."

He could almost  _hear_ the eye roll Dave gave when he went to retrieve the snacks and music.

They spent the rest of the afternoon like that, alternating between The Smiths and Ed Sheeran while they worked, occasionally exchanging comments-Dave's muffled through the pencil he insisted on keeping in between his teeth-about how awful their pieces were.

The rest of the night was lazy as usual, respectively sprawled out on the couch and watching shitty movies, talking about how awful college was and how much they didn't want to go to class tomorrow.

Things were usually like this; and they continued this way, until the following Monday, when Terezi said possibly the stupidest thing ever.

"So I'm throwing another party."

"No."

" _Fuck_  no."

She pouted at the both of them, bottom lip sticking out, and turned to look at Sollux pleadingly. He put up both hands in surrender, actually putting his phone down to complete the action. "Don't bring me into thith, I'm... a completely impartial party. I literally have no opinion on the matter."

She turned back to Dave and Karkat, hands on her hips, eyes narrowing slowly. "You're coming," she said, voice low. "Because Eridan and Rose are all coming to visit, and it is going to be great, and also you don't actually have a choice, I just thought I'd make it seem that way so that you didn't feel the situation was unjust, but apparently  _that's_ out the window because you're both jerks!"

Dave rolled his eyes and gave a sigh sassy enough to rival Kanaya's when she got snippy enough. "You say 'Rose is coming to visit' like it's even a big deal. She is literally wiping her ass with hundred dollar bills over book sales these days, she could probably afford to have a private jet flying on loop from her place to the school. I could literally call her right now and ask her to bring me fucking Taco Bell and she could do it."

Terezi wrinkled her nose. "Dave, that is disgusting. Taco Bell is disgusting. Please come to my party."

His expression didn't change. "No."

She looked to Karkat, lip trembling and eyes pleading. He held both hands up in surrender. "Oh fuck no you don't, don't pull that sad eye bullshit on me, I am not being guilted into being suspended for half a week again."

"You won't be suspended," she whined, drawing out the words. "I actually went and talked to the dean this time, he said it was fine as long as we kept the noise relatively low. And there aren't even that many people coming this time, Karkles, Karketta, K-dawg my man  _please,_ I will literally love you for the rest of my life, I swear to every Go-"

"Oh my God, fine, you manipulative bitch, I'll go. Just- shut up about it, Jesus."

She grinned triumphantly, and collapsed back in her seat, shifting her savage excitement slightly to the left. "Dave-"

"I'll go if El Dorko is going, I guess, also on the condition that you are fully stocked with AJ in time for my glorious presense to enter your room."

She sighed, but shrugged nontheless. "Yeah, I can do that, I guess. So you'll come?"

Dave shrugged. "I guess."

"Excellent!" she clapped her hands together loud enough to startle Sollux into dropping his phone again, and he muttered a few curses, picking it back up again and resuming his incessant typing.

Karkat gestured at it. "But if I catch this asshole making out with his fish boyfriend even  _once,_ I will not hesitate to go right the fuck back to my room and stay there for the rest of the week."

Sollux didn't even look up, mumbling, "Oh, don't you worry, we'll be retiring to my room  _veeery_ early if I have any thay in it."

Karkat and Dave both made puking noises on cue, and Sollux grined, laughing out a 'ehehehe' before he went silent again, completely transfixed with his phone.

"Alright, well, I'm gonna be late to my next class, so," Dave stood up, then dropped his own phone in his attempt to put it into his pocket, swearing under his breath and bending down to get it.

Terezi made obscene gestures at Karkat. When he frowned at her, she gestured at Dave's ass, and lent forward to hiss the words, "grab it."

"Oh my God what the fuck is wrong with you."

Dave stood back up and looked between them, confused. Karkat went completely red. He stared for a couple of really long, really painful moments, before he simply shrugged and went off for his next class. 

As soon as he was out of sight Karkat hit Terezi over the head.

"Ow!"

"I am going to choke you with your own obnoxious ego, you crazy bitch!"

She rubbed her head, glaring at him. "I was doing you a favour. You were almost  _in._ "

"I was not 'in' anywhere, oh my God," he muttered, standing up and gathering his things, turning to leave for his own class, before decidedly turning back around and shouting, "And stop meddling!"

Sollux was still typing away obnoxiously when he left.


	13. Chapter 13

Dave Strider was losing his fucking mind.

Ever since they'd decided to become friends, his feelings had only elevated, leaving him wildly depressed about the whole thing, wanting to be around him always but keeping his respective distance so as not to startle him into hating him or anything, and- more than once- having to excuse himself to go "see a friend" when really he was relieving himself in a bathroom stall somewhere, mouthing Karkat's name into the back of his hand and always feeling guilty once he'd come, like he was using the troll.

It didn't help that Terezi was being frustratingly persistent, waggling her eyebrows at him suggestively every time they so much as sat next to each other, urging him and encouraging him every time Karkat was otherwise occupied to "get in". Whatever the Hell that meant.

Bro and John were just as frustratingly set on what they were currently referring to as "Project Davekat". (Bro had wanted to call it "Project Coolkid and Nubs", but John had been adamant.) He was getting infuriatingly used to his three-times-weekly phone calls asking if he'd courted the troll yet.

The party coming up on Friday was another thing he was  _not_ looking forward to, either, because it just reminded him of last time. I mean, sure, he loved parties. He was a Strider, he was meant to love socializing and loud music and... stuff. Dave shuddered internally just thinking about that many people being around him. Still, the memories of last time, of how close they'd been to kissing before Terezi burst in and Karkat wouldn't look at him the rest of the night wouldn't stop playing through his mind, so anyone could understand why he wasn't exactly eager for Friday to roll around.

He thought that he might have actually been able to deal with this whole thing, too, if Karkat wasn't so touchy-feely when he was either sleepy or in a particularly good mood. More than once he'd had to reluctantly pry those warm arms off of him and escape to the bathroom for a cold shower, and almost  _daily_ he had to deal with those stupid onslaughts of butterflies he got whenever Karkat would shove him jokingly or brush his hand with his hip on his way past or- God fucking forbid- that one time Dave stole his laptop and he quite literally crawled on top of him to get it back.

Yeah.

Dave Strider was fucking smitten.

They sat on the sofa together on this particular Monday evening, and he was still thinking about the stupid party when Karkat brought it up.

"You know, this whole situation is starting to remind me of High School."

Dave jolted into alterntness immediately, but his hope quickly faded. High School probably didn't hold the same memories for Karkat as it did for him, memories of a very overbearing crush and fuck all else as far as Dave was concerned. Still, when he asked, "What do you mean?" he was unable to keep the hope out of his voice.

"The party," Karkat said, and then waved his hand; he was really relaxed this evening, full on the burgers Dave had shouted them for dinner and happy with his choice in movies, which was a terrible romantic comedy that Dave was pretending to be interested in. "And this whole situation in general. Terezi being terrifying and bossy, Kanaya and Rose unable to keep it in their pants, Sollux and his dumb lovelife. And here I am, single and stressed out of my fucking pan. Again."

"Aw man, don't be stressed," Dave said, meaning for it to be joking; but of course Karkat took it the patronizing way, anger suddenly flaring on his face, laced with a little hurt that did ridiculous things to Dave's chest.

"Look, I don't expect you to understand."

Dave shrugged but didn't look at him. "All cats are grey in the dark, you know," he said.

Karkat tilted his head to look at him, not even trying slightly to hide his frown. "What the shit is that supposed to mean?"

Dave shrugged again, giving him a sidelong glance through his shades which he couldn't see. "It means we're all the same when it comes down to it, dude. Especially you and I, is what I was getting at."

Karkat sighed and leaned back, folding his arms and muttering quietly, "I know you probably had your own shit going on when you were growing up, but that doesn't mean you know a damn thing about what I went through."

Hearing the defense in his tone, Dave stared at him for a while, before asking, as non-threatening as he could manage, "You mean the depression and the cutting and stuff, right?"

He felt guilty as soon as he heard Karkat's off-beat intake of breath, relaxed a little when his tone was as snippy as always, "Yes 'and stuff', asshole."

Dave stared at him a bit alonger again, and then, shrugging, lent forward and began to take his pants off.

Karkat's eyes flew wide open and he scooted away from him. "Whoa- what the fuck are you doing there?"

"Relax, idiot," Dave said, rolling his eyes, and pulled his jeans down so that they just exposed the top bits of his thighs. He gestured to them and waited for Karkat to see the marks himself.

The first look that crossed the troll's face was utter confusion. Then, realisation, and for the briefest of seconds raw, enflamed anger; but that then quickly dissolved into the most hurt look Dave thought he might have ever seen on him, and he looked up, meeting Dave's eyes with his own. "Oh, fuck, I'm so sorry, I didn't-"

"It's fine," Dave interrupted quickly, smiling to show him that he wasn't offended. "You didn't know."

Karkat swallowed and looked back down, and then his lip trembled and it literally took every ounce of self-control that Dave had not to just crush him to the other side of the sofa with a kiss. Hesitantly, Karkat reached out and traced one of the darker, angrier ones, jagged and discoloured and deeper than the others. He ran his fingers over it gently, like he was afraid it might still hurt, and for the first time in a long time, Dave felt like someone understood. The look on Karkat's face literally screamed  _I understand,_ and when he moved his hand- carefully, again, careful not to cross over any scars the opposite way to which they had been inflicted, like he knew, fuck, he knew exactly how Dave had done it and just how angry and hurt and lonely he'd been- to touch the others.

Then he pulled his hand back, looking embarrassed, and it was gone just like that, so Dave pulled up his pants and turned back to stare at the TV without really seeing anything.

After a long bout of silence, Karkat asked, "When was the last time?"

Dave didn't have to ask him what he meant. "Almost two years clean. What about you?"

Karkat was quiet for way too long before he said, "Eight weeks."

Dave turned his head to look at him, pain knitting his eyebrows together. "Seriously?"

Karkat nodded, cheeks heating up a little. His hands were clenched into fists. Dave didn't know what to do; he wanted to hold him and stroke his hair and kiss him all over, tell him everything would be okay, but at the same time he was afraid that touching him would only upset him, and then where would they be? Instead of doing those things, he lent over, took his cheek in his hand, and turned Karkat's face towards his.

The way his eyes widened would have been comical if what came out of Dave's mouth next hadn't been so serious, "I don't ever want you to do it again, understand me?"

Karkat looked away, lids lowering to their normal place again. "Not like I was planning on it," he said gruffly, and then Dave released him and they went back to watching the movie like everything was normal.

Karkat was yawning before it was even three quarters of the way through, and Dave poked his cheek, pulling a face at him. "Dude, don't fall asleep, you made me download this shitty movie so you stay awake for it, that's the deal."

Karkat yawned again, waving a hand at him dismissively. "Shut up, fuckass, I just... need to lie down, that's all."

Without warning, he lowered himself down to place his head in Dave's lap, stretching his body out over the rest of the couch. Dave looked down at him for a minute, before just giving in and running a hand through his hair, playing with the strands gently.

"...Mind telling me what the fuck you're doing?"

"Your hair's soft," Dave mused. "Do you condition it?"

"What is this, twenty questions?"

Looking down, Dave experimentally took one of his horns between his thumb and forefinger.

Karkat yelped and fell off of the couch.

Wide eyed, Dave watched as he scrambled to his feet, jutting a finger right into Dave's face.

"Do not! Do that!  _Ever again!_ "

Dave held his hands up in surrender. "Whoa, I didn't-"

"They're... fucking sensitive, okay, just don't," Karkat huffed, then stomped off in the direction of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Soon after came the sound of running water and Dave concluded that he was literally showering again despite the fact that it was ten-thirty at night. He rolled his eyes and tried to pay attention to the rest of the movie despite not giving a single lone shit about whatever the Hell was going on between Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. 

Karkat came out some time later with wet hair and the same clothes on, and crawled into bed, so Dave turned the movie off and decided to join him, sliding under the covers and lying on his side with his eyes open, knowing damn well he wouldn't be able to fall asleep right away anyway;  _especially_ not tonight.

Quietly, Karkat's voice came form the other side of the bed. "...Dave?"

"Mhm?"

"Are you still getting nightmares?"  
  


Dave turned around and sat up to look at him. "Yeah, sort of. Why?"

Even in the almost complete blackness, he could see the way Karkat looked down and then promptly away from him, a look that said 'don't take this the wrong way and if you want me to be joking I will totally pretend that I was joking the whole time ha ha I don't actually have feelings I'm Karkat Vantas'. "I, um. Y-you were saying the other night, about me being cuddly or whatever. Which is weird, but... I mean, if it  _helps..._ "

"Oh," Dave was smiling now, and chuckled gently, only laughing harder when he saw the anger cross Karkat's face at being laughed at. "Sorry, I just. I'm not gonna force you to cuddle with me just 'cause I'm not getting a perfect eight hours of sleep, dude."

Silence.

Then, very quietly, "I don't mind."

For a moment Dave just looked at him, just looked at the embarrassment on his face and the way the soft light from the slightly open venetian blinds hit his cheek, tinted red, the rise and fall of his shoulders with his breathing and the fact that though Dave could only see part of one hand he knew instantly that they were both clenched into fists.

He smiled. "Alright."

Karkat sighed, shifting kind of awkwardly to account for the space that Dave was gonna take up.

"Uh... how do I..."

"Just... fuck, come here-"

Instead, Dave tugged him flush against his body, smirking when he cried out a little. Karkat kneed him in the stomach and he laughed. Then the laughter dissipated altogether, because Karkat grew quiet again and very nervously, uncertainly, shifted so that he was in Dave's arms and his head was almost buried in his neck. Dave was unable to stop how loud his exhale was, winding his own arms to hold him. Outside cars were still passing on the highway, neither particularly loud nor quiet, and someone in one of the other rooms were playing bad indie rock music quietly, which he wanted to say ruined the moment but it didn't; shit, how could anything ruin this moment? His eyes slipped shut, well aware of how awful and unironic he was being, but then again, he didn't really care, either; the smile was still on his face when he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um yes hello i don't know how many people read this, but if anybody was interested i'm selling five dollar commissions here http://www.etsy.com/au/shop/LittleBlackSailboat and idk they've gotten good feedback so far so?? yeah they're here if anyone wants one, hehe. :)


	14. Chapter 14

Things went straight back to normal after Monday, and the two of them resumed their teasing nature, arguing over how long the other was in the bathroom in the mornings and over who would cook dinner at night. Terezi said that they were like a married couple, and Karkat almost punched her in the nose in front of everybody; he didn't, of course, because it was Terezi and even if it wasn't everyone would probably just judge him because they were assholes.

Things were becoming slightly more erratic in the ways of how close he came to just leaning up on his tip-toes and kissing Dave silent, red in the face practically every time he looked at him after one of  _those_ thoughts played through his mind. 

On Tuesday, he came back to the room to find Dave shirtless on the floor doing sit ups, and he got a boner.

On Wednesday morning, he woke up to Dave in boxers at his turntables, long fingers sliding everywhere and glasses on top of his head, and he got a boner.

On Wednesday night, Dave wore these ridiculous red pajamas with a cape and when they laid down to go to sleep he wrapped Karkat in it as if it was no big deal, and Karkat had to get out of bed in the middle of the night to lock himself in the bathroom and cry.

This was becoming ridiculous, his hormones all over the place; every time Dave so much as  _looked_ at him now he felt his heart swell ridiculously. Eventually he became sick of this, of the side effects of a crush in general, and on Thursday afternoon, he went to consult Kanaya.

She didn't even think about her answer before looking him squarely in the face and saying, "You're in love with him, you fraudulent jackass."

Karkat wasn't sure how to feel about that; about being  _really_ red for him, maybe this whole time; so again, he decided he didn't trust his own judgement and he went to Terezi.

She sipped at her drink through a straw, eyeing him with enough scrutiny to make him squirm even though her stare was blank and glassy.

After a moment, she pulled away and nodded, making a noise in her throat of affirmation. "Mm. You're in love with him alright."

"What? How can you- you just  _looked_ at me. Actually, you didn't even look at me, you-"

She held up a hand, silencing him. "I don't have time for your childish prejudice against blind people, Vantas, we have more pressing matters at hand. Like the fact that you are quite literally oozing love for the coolkid. Seriously, has he not noticed yet?"

"Noticed what?" Karkat grumbled, cheeks heating; Terezi grinned savagely, probably aware he was blushing even before he was. "There's nothing to notice."

Terezi was on him in a second, sniffing grossly at his hair. He made a disgusted, outraged noise, and tried to push her off but she just gazed into his wide eyes with her blank ones, sharp teeth lifted into a devilish grin. "You  _smell_ like love, Karkles," she paused to lick a long, wet stripe up his cheek, and he cried out, wiping at it furiously. "And you  _taste_ like love, too! The jury has reached a verdict! We find the defendent Karkat guilty... of  _looove."_

_  
_"Alright, thank you, the defendent has heard enough to know that the jury's verdict cannot be accurate because Terezi is a fucking pyschopath, show's over and you can all go home!"

Terezi continued to grin even as she climbed off of him, folding her hands in her lap neatly from the other side of her bed. Then her face grew a tiny bit more serious, just a small, knowing smile on her lips. "You're so flushed for him you can't stand it, aren't you?"

Karkat's cheeks heated up ridiculousy. He didn't answer, and he knew he didn't have to.

By the time Friday rolled around, Karkat was so sure that he couldn't make things possibly any worse that he actually took more time than usual styling his hair (albeit with water, he was still styling it) and dressed himself in something that was  _almost_ formal attire; casual enough to still pass at one of Terezi's parties.

Dave banged on the bathroom door, and Karkat's stomach flipped with deja-vu.

He came out with a frown on his face, practically nose-to-nose with how close Dave had been standing to the door, fist raised and ready to knock again and mouth open as if he'd been going to shout something. It remained open, which looked ridiculous, and Karkat saw the barest of movements behind his shades, indicating that he was giving him a very long once-over. Eventually, his mouth shut and he grinned. "I'd fuck you," he said, and Karkat shoved past him like those words hadn't set off fireworks in his gut.

They made light conversation on the way to Terezi's, but this time there was less awkwardness, and their topics weren't ones you brought up with someone you'd just decided to get know; rather, they were jokes between good friends and hidden meanings, like how instead of talking about what bands they liked they argued about what they'd listen to later, and instead of discussing what classes they were taking it was how classes were going, and how ridiculous the people in them were.

Karkat was already fearing suspension when they got to Terezi's floor, the entire thing caught in a whirlpool of music so loud it was practically angry. They found Rose and Kanaya straight away and hung out with them for a bit; Rose was already drunk off of her face, swaying and giggling at everything anyone said, even though most of what was being said weren't even jokes; Kanaya was holding her up, an arm around her waist, shaking her head fondly at her girlfriend every now and again.

Dave and Karkat excused themselves after a while to go search for other friends, finding Terezi flirting her face off with some poor terrified troll boy, and learned quickly that Sollux was infact currently in his room with Eridan. Karkat tried and failed not to shudder at the thought. Dave gagged. Terezi laughed savagely and joked that they should go in there with a camera. Part of Karkat wasn't sure whether she was actually joking, though, so he and Dave excused themselves after that.

Uninterested in seeing anyone else at the party, they manouvered their way through the crowd until they found an empty room, which happened to be Kanaya's bedroom. Dave shut the door behind them and Karkat went to turn on the lamp to the lowest setting, flopping on his back down on the bed and letting out a long breath. Dave chuckled, the bed groaning and sinking a little as he came to sit next to him, eventually just flopping onto his back, too. They both laughed.

Dave took off his shades, setting them gently on Kanaya's pillow so that they wouldn't get broken, but from the way they lay, and the darkness of the room, Karkat couldn't see enough of his eyes to be in awe.

"I hate these stupid parties," Karkat said through a laugh, and Dave nodded, agreeing.

"Oh man, parties are so stupid. It's like, I wanna meet the jackass who thought it would be a good idea to round up a bunch of drunk, horny people and shove them in the same immediate vicinity as each other. While playing bad music."

Karkat laughed in agreement, and then silence started to fall, so he said, "Hey, we should play truth or dare again. Or, like, truth, because I can't get up. I am literally so fucking comfortable right now."

"Amen to that," Dave said, chuckling breathily. Then, sarcastically, "So truth or dare?"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Truth."

It was quiet as Dave thought, the music outside scratching at the door obtrusively, Dave's breath almost matching his perfectly. Finally, Dave grinned and said, "Would you ever get a tattoo?"

Karkat's expression dropped. "No."

"Aw, why not?"

"Because they're dumb and I don't need one. Your tur-"

"What if I got one with you?"

"Are you seriously trying to peer-pressure me into getting a tattoo with you?"

"Is it working?"

"Hell no."

Dave nodded to himself, the barest hints of a smile twitching his lips. "I bet I could change your mind."

"Like Hell you could," Karkat rolled his eyes. "Okay, so, truth for you. Worst movie you've ever seen."

Dave didn't even think about his answer. "Con Air. I have had to watch that god-awful movie so many fucking times, do not get me started on Nic Cage or the goddamn bunny in its goddamn box. Dumbest gift you've ever received."

Karkat didn't have to think about his answer either. "One time Gamzee bought me a goose. A fucking goose. Because it honked. When did you realise you were gay?"

Dave thought about it. Karkat wasn't sure when, but at some point they had turned on their sides, almost facing each other pefectly. Eventually, with a twist of his lips, he said, "Not sure, actually. It was kind of an up and down thing for me. I thought I was, in High School, when I got sick of girls, but then I thought that I might not be, and then I decided I definitely was again when I liked this one guy... and then again, High School ended and I had this thing with a girl for a while... and then we went to do the do, y'know, and I was like, whoa hold up, same asshole guy from High School, kind of in love with him, and I thought, well now that's a bit gay, Strider, are you gay? And yeah."

Karkat didn't know whether to roll his eyes or assault him with questions, hope and jealousy both battling hand in hand inside of him. "Right. You're a master story teller, by the way."

Dave grinned. "I know right. Okay, your turn. Who was your first kiss?"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "You were, dumbass."

Dave actually looked surprised. "Oh."

It was quiet again for a while, before Karkat realised that Dave was waiting for his question. He looked down and played with his fingers when he asked it, just so that he wouldn't have to look into Dave's eyes directly. "Do you... currently have a crush on anyone?"

"What is this, middle school?"

"Just answer the fucking question, you douche, I answered all of your stupid ones."

Dave sighed, and then finally answered, "Yeah. I do, actually. And he's kind of really fucking amazing."

Karkat felt his stomach flip, crash, and drown itself in the fucking ocean. He could not hide the glower on his face. "Oh."

"Oh?" Dave raised his eyebrow. "That a specific 'oh', Karkat?"

"What does it matter if it is?" Karkat asked, sitting up and turning away from Dave when he felt his gaze on him. Dave sat up with him, brows knit together.

"Dude, you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay!" Karkat snapped, tone bitter and he was unable to stop himself; he'd been prepared, and it still hurt so, so much. "Why wouldn't I be? You can like whoever the fuck you want, it's none of my business."

"It certainly sounds like you think it's your business," Dave snapped back, tone fighting back. "Why are you freaking out about it?"

Karkat stood. "I'm not freaking out!"

Dave stood, too. "Right, because throwing your hands up and shouting at me that, 'Oh Dave I tota-fuckin-ly don't care why would I care I'm Karkat I'm so tsundere I can't help it' isn't freaking out at all, that's a totally normal reaction to someone casually telling another person that they like someone-"

"Oh,  _please,_ you ignorant asshole, just go shove your head up your ass somewhere else if you're gonna act like you don't know exactly what the fuck is going on."

They had backed almost completely against the wall now, and as he moved one step more backwards with Dave's step forward, Karkat hit the wall, baring his teeth, trapped.

Dave's eyes were ablaze, red and hot and burning even in the lowlight of the room, angry and real and raw and looking  _right at him._ "Alright, so maybe I think I know exactly what you're getting at. What then?"

"Maybe I don't care if you know!"

"Maybe I was talking about  _you!_ "

" _Maybe I like you back!_ "

"Maybe I'll kiss you!"

"Maybe I'll kiss you ba- mph!"

Without a single moment's warning, Dave crushed his lips to Karkat's, trapping him flush against the wall and his body, fingers sliding up to take his jaw in both hands, holding his face there. Karkat growled into the kiss, hands sliding up to practically tear at Dave's hair, needing more of him instantly, more of this. The first hint of tongue had Karkat shivering deliciously, and he gladly let Dave in, tilting his head to deepen the kiss and musing in the way the skin on Dave's neck was warmer than his, the way he smelled of sweat and spice and cologne and all of those other wonderful things, his own tongue losing the fight for dominance quickly but he didn't care, too lost to the sensations now, to the desperate slide of their lips and his hands, tight in Dave's hair, Dave's hands, tight on his jaw.

He broke away for air, still angry, still fuming, but it was all just concentrated desperation, his  _need_ for this, to have more, more of Dave, all of him immediately. Dave dragged him by the front of his shirt off of the wall and just slammed him into another one, this time sliding his tongue into Karkat's mouth straight away, lifting him off of the ground and holding him against the wall with his hands on his ass, Karkat's legs winding around his waist as he took fistfuls of shirt.

They broke away from the wall again, though this time without breaking their kiss, and Dave just threw Karkat down on the bed and landed after him, tearing their lips away to drag his own over the underside of Karkat's chin, hands slipping under his shirt to drag his nails gently up and down his sides. The Cancer keened and arched his back, took Dave by the back of the neck again and ordered him back to his lips, kissing him hard and hot and loving until he saw stars.

The next time they pulled away for air, Dave was tugging on Karkat's shirt, a hint to get it off, or maybe just out of the way, he didn't know. Karkat dragged his own lips- and then his teeth- over the skin of Dave's neck, and Strider gasped girlishly when he sucked a bit of skin there into his mouth, hard enough to leave a mark. Dave grabbed a fistful of his shirt at the front, and ground out through his teeth, "Fuck, Karkat, I love you so much."

Karkat froze. Dave froze.

"...What."

"What."

They met eyes, Dave's own blown wide with lust and shock both. Karkat opened his mouth to question him.

And at that moment a very drunk Lalonde decided to stumble her way into the room with her girlfriend in tow.

"Ooh, sorry," she giggled, hiccuping, "didn't realise that this room was- hic- already tak...  _Dave and Karkat?!_ "

Oh, God.

They both sat up, tearing away from each other, and Rose hiccupped again, pointing a trembling finger at them and grinning like she'd just discovered gold. "Hoohoohoo, what's goin'- hic- on in  _heeere_?"

Oh,  _God._

_  
_"Nothing! Nothing is going on, we were just, and then he, and like I said we were just kind of talking and then I don't know what you saw but we definitely weren't" all came out in a big jumble from both of them, but Rose was already giggling again and waving her finger at them, and Kanaya was grinning too, fangs showing with all the brilliance of a cat who'd just caught a mouse. Karkat climbed off of the bed and pushed past them, storming out of the party.

He heard Dave behind him the whole way, shouting out 'hey's and 'karkat's a few times as if that was actually going to stop him; he pushed everyone in his way, stomping all the way back to their room and practically throwing the door open, hearing Dave catch it, quick on his heel. He turned around to face him, throwing his hands up. "Did you mean it?!"

"Mean what?" Dave yelled back; his glasses were back on his face, and it was infuriating; Karkat wanted to scream or cry or both.

"You said you loved me! Right then, back there, you said that you loved me! And now I'm asking if you meant it!"

"Of course I fucking  _meant_   it, you idiot! God, how stupid to you actually have to be to-"

Karkat shut him up by throwing himself at him, leaning up to smash their lips together and tearing those stupid shades right off of his face, throwing them unwanted to the floor and positively  _crying_ when he felt Dave kiss back just as needily, fingers threading and pulling in his hair again, both their eyes squeezed shut.

Dave picked him up and threw him against a wall again, kisses feverish, hands going everywhere when Karkat wound his legs around to keep in place. He broke away from the kiss to plant desperate ones all over Dave's chin and neck and face, trying to get out words in between. "I'm (kiss) so fucking (kiss) red for you, Strider (kiss) that I don't know what to do about it. (kiss) (kiss) Have been (kiss) since High School. Fucking (kiss) love you so much (kiss) you asshole, love you so much..." Dave shut him up by kissing him so hard his head spun, threading his hands through his hair again as Karkat's own gripped at his shirt, trying to get it off. Dave could barely get it over his head, trying to keep Karkat up still at the same time and almost falling, twice. Karkat didn't even have the humour in him to laugh right now, returning to Dave's mouth as soon as the shirt was off and winding his arms around his neck, the feeling of bare, warm skin foreign on his arms.

Dave carried him over to the bed and laid him down, so gentle, too gentle all of a sudden, and it was only then that Karkat realised he'd started crying; nothing too drastic, just a couple of tears that had sprung to his eyes and two or three that had spilled, but they were just tears of pure frustration, of overwhelmed emotion. Dave got Karkat's own shirt off, and then their pants, leaving them both only in their boxers and moving down to slide his body on top of Karkat's, a hand on either side of his face as they kissed and he wiped the tears away with his thumbs.

The kisses became less violent and desperate and erratic as time passed, becoming lazy and loving and languid. Karkat tried to convey everything he wanted to tell Dave into the way he kissed him, the two of them taking their time to just lazily run their hands over the other's body, leaving marks over every square inch of skin. Eventually, Dave got off of him and they got under the covers, laying side by side and just kissing, Dave's hands running up and down his sides, legs tangled.

Karkat wasn't sure exactly when, but at some point in the night they stopped kissing and just lay there touching, timing their breaths together as it started to storm outside. In the dim light from the parly open blinds, Karkat could see Dave's impossibly red eyes trained on him, hand stroking up and down his body carressingly. When he caught him staring back, expression completely sober, Dave moved in to sweep some of Karkat's messy hair from his forehead, brushing his lips against the skin of his forehead.

Karkat looked down, away from him. It was a while before he asked, "So what does this mean?"

"This," Dave said, and kissed his shoulder blade lightly. "Means I love you." He then moved to kiss his neck, again lightly, lips by Karkat's ear when he spoke. "This means I want you." And then he kissed Karkat's lips, longer than the other kisses had been, deeper and fonder. "And this means I'm here, I'm not gonna go anywhere as long as you want me."

Karkat's chest swelled ridiculously, the broken and shattering sound of rain outside his window filling him as he kissed Dave into the pillow, not quite crawling on top again but hovering over him, the kiss long and ridiculously hard, both meaning to shut him up and thank him for those sweet words that Karkat didn't think he'd ever be able to get out himself, but trying to convey them anyway in the passion behind each kiss. Thunder was just starting to clap when he pulled away to nestle into Dave's chest, feeling more warm and loved and protected than he ever had when he felt arms slide around to hold him in place. "I mean, as far as dating things go," he said quietly.

Dave was quiet too, and then asked, "Do you  _want_ to be my boyfriend?"

Karkat looked up and rolled his eyes, voice soft and gravelly with exhaustion and an overwhelming amount of love. "That's the same as a matesprit?"

Dave looked like he actually had to think about it for a second, and then nodded. "Yeah, think so. We could be both, if you wanted."

Karkat's only response was a soft kiss to his lips, and then he lay down on his chest again and closed his eyes.

Sleep took him quickly this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How dramatic was this chapter, hehehehe. Just a quick note, before you ask, it's not over! I still have this whole intricate plot plan and man, they haven't even bumped nasties yet. Also thank you everyone for your kind words and praises and comments, you're literally all the coolest cats in the club. <33


	15. Chapter 15

The first thing that Karkat thought of when he woke up was very blatant: what the Hell had happened last night? For the first time ever, when he had woken up to find himself attached to Dave’s side, he didn’t blush and move away and go to take a shower; instead, he breathed a tiny surprised breath, smiled to himself goofily, and slid closer against him. He would probably have been content to stay like that for a large portion of the rest of the day if not for the short intake of breath the human made when he felt him shift against him that alerted Karkat to his consciousness: and then came the awkwardness. Neither of them moved, both clearly aware that the other was awake but unsure now how to strike up conversation. Neither had been  _drunk,_ Karkat thought, relieved at least that Dave would remember… and yet he couldn’t help but worry immensely that it had just been a spur of the moment thing from which Strider would now completely bounce back from. Karkat was the first one to speak. “You talk in your sleep sometimes.”

“Mm, so do you,” Dave replied instantly, and oh  _God,_ Karkat felt his heart swell with ridiculous fondness at the sound of it: sleepy, husky, slightly croaky, and with just that tiny bit of his accent showing through. “You purr, too.”

“Not intentionally,” Karkat defended, getting off of him to glare back down at him. “And shut the fuck up, because you have said some pretty damn embarrassing things in the past—mph.”

Dave shut him up by pressing their mouths together. Karkat could feel the smile on his mouth, and his sigh was of an almost pained relief as his hands travelled up to find themselves in Dave’s hair again. He could certainly get used to this sort of thing.

He was laughing when he pulled away. “Well, that certainly is a way to get you to shut up.”

Glaring, Karkat moved in to kiss him again, rolling them so that he was on top. Dave put forward no protests and gladly slid his hands down to Karkat’s hips, unabashedly sliding them further up after a moment to rub at the skin of his sides under his shirt. Karkat arched into his touch, eliciting another laugh from his… boyfriend? Matesprit? Apparently both now. Karkat smiled at the thought, right up until the moment Dave’s lips found his neck and he let out a slight gasp, eyes slipping shut.

“Yep,” Dave said, lips vibrating the troll’s throat; he gasped again. “Should have been doing this a looong time ago.” He pulled away suddenly, frowning down at the exposed skin. “Aw, no fair,” he said, pouting visibly. “I didn’t even leave any cool marks last night.”

“You’ve—ngh,” Dave started kissing his neck again, “You’ve got your own hickeys to worry about, loser.”

Dave stopped kissing his neck. Then he jumped from the bed and ran into the bathroom. The only sound to come from there after a solid thirty seconds of silence was the word “awesome”, and then Dave came out with a ridiculous smile on his face. He fell back into bed rather ungracefully, made up for it by kissing Karkat long and hard into the pillow. His eyes were dark when he pulled away. “I’ll mark you next time, y’know.”

Karkat couldn’t help the twitch low in his gut, both at the intensity of Dave’s tone and at the mention of a next time, and pulled him back down by the back of his neck for another long kiss. This one wasn’t interrupted for a while, as they both just lay there kissing and touching and letting their limbs slide; it took Karkat a while to realise that the lack of weird friction on his legs (which were naturally hairless; he’d gotten enough speculation and teasing about that from John all through school) was due to the fact that Dave didn’t have any hair on his, either. He made a mental note to ask him about it later, but for now just sighed and gasped and touched and kissed, the smooth slide of skin close to heavenly.

It could have been days later for all he was concerned when Dave pulled away and stayed away, a grimace on his face. "Shit," he said. "I told Terezi we'd have lunch with her."

Karkat's own expression fell and soured, and without so much as flinching, he said, "No." And went back to kissing Dave.

It was almost comical, seeing how hard Dave tried to not sink into it again, but three seconds and he was lost with a defeatist sigh and his hands went to run over Karkat's back again, resting on his hips and just a little closer to his ass than before. Then he pulled away again, breathing hard, and Karkat all but growled, nuzzling his head forcefully into Dave's neck and pressing kisses all over the skin there.

"Screw Terezi," he whined, and in a very sudden movement, grabbed Dave's hands and put them on his ass. "Touch me, damn it."

Dave gasped and choked on a moan, muffling a "jesus fucking christ" into Karkat's neck as he moved up to kiss there, hands stroking and then squeezing his ass a few times. He pulled away all at once, rolling Karkat off of him and groaning, throwing an arm over his eyes. "God damn it, no, that is not fair. The one time I actually need to haul my ass out of this room you decide to get all," he waved a hand at Karkat without taking his arm off of his face, "ridiculously sexy."

Karkat felt his cheeks flush with heat, and instead of tackling Dave again, just let his face fall to the bed, groan muffled. "Why do we even have to go to lunch with her, what the fuck. When did you even agree to go?"

Dave waved the hand that wasn't across his face, groaning back. "Rose sobered up some time in the middle of the night and called me to ask if we'd gone back to our room to make the same hot interspecies love that she and Kanaya had apparently made, and then Terezi was there and they were all squealing about how vague I was being and Terezi made me agree that we'd go to lunch with her in the city. I am so fucking sorry man."

Karkat grimaced, poking an accusing finger into his arm. "No, fuck you, you don't get to be sorry because this is all your fault, and there is no way I'm going to forgive you so don't even bother-"

"Will you forgive me if I buy you lunch?"

Karkat scoffed. "Right, because doing the thing I've always been against you doing in the past is gonna win you brownie points."

Dave took the arm off of his eyes and pouted. "What if when we get back we download movies and I let you pick the movie?"

Karkat pursed his lips- they were getting somewhere- but still didn't budge, arms folded across his chest. Dave crawled up to him, kissing at the underside of his chin lightly. "What if," kiss, "as soon as we're alone," kiss, "I throw you against a wall and kiss you so hard your head spins."

Karkat's head spun  _now_ at just the thought of it, and then at the thought that  _holy shit this was really happening he and Dave were really actually dating and Dave was talking about kissing him as if it was a regular thing because of course it was gonna be a regular thing you asshole Dave likes you back- no fuck, Dave **loves** you back, he said it himself- and now you two are going to be kissing all the time and holy fucking shit.  
_

 _  
_Instead of saying any of those things, he pressed his lips to Dave's, letting the kiss run gentle and far too short before he pulled away and got up from bed, running a hand through his messy hair and muttering about needing to get dressed if he was gonna do this stupid thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gomen it's short but i ran out of time and have had an incredibly stressful day and wanted to get something posted just in case i don't tomorrow! uwu


	16. Chapter 16

Outside was still cold, condensation scattered appropriately along the edges of the window, but it wasn't raining anymore, so Karkat wore a sweater. Dave spent an obnoxiously long time _feeling_ said sweater, with his mouth otherwise occupied on Karkat's while pressed against the wall adjacent to the door. Not that Karkat was complaining. Who cared if they were late anyway?

This was all so impossibly new to Karkat, he thought on their way downstairs, eyeing Dave's hand as if it were alien to him. He'd never been in a relationship like this, with this unspoken need to... to  _coalesce_ or something, and everything about it was strange. They made casual conversation, Dave made horrible jokes, Karkat called him names, and it felt normal. There was a swelling in Karkat's chest, though, hilariously akin to how he had felt this time yesterday though now with a completely different cause.

Dave stopped suddenly, and pointed. "Hey, whoa, what's that?"

"What's what?"

Dave pointed some more. "That, on your hand," he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. "Let me see that."

Karkat lifted his hand on impulse, a sort of dumbfounded expression on his face, only for Dave to thread their fingers together with a triumphant grin. He dropped their arms and swung their hands together. "Never mind, it was just my hand," he said, and what Karkat thought he really must have meant was "ha ha asshole now we're holding hands" because that was the look he had on his face when they started walking again.

Karkat was still thinking about how terrible and lovely and strange this was when they got down to the reception floor and found Terezi, Kanaya and Rose waiting for them, all huddled around like they'd been in the middle of some big bitchy gossip session. They broke away as soon as they caught sight of them, and the way that all three pairs of eyes dropped to the intertwined hands would have been hilarious if it had not been happening to Karkat.

Then Terezi screamed.

Or, she may as well have screamed, because the noise she made when she flung herself at them was ridiculous, throwing her arms around both of their necks and planting a wet kiss on Karkat's cheek. "Someone hand me a phone," she sung, pulling away with a grin that was almost violent. "Because I  _called_ it!"

"Congratulations," Rose said, and Karkat decided that he wanted to die.

They all took a cab in and spent the day in the main part of the city, and as soon as the conversation shifted from oh-my-god-did-you-two-have-sex-what-happened things became not bearable, but actually pleasant, and as the afternoon went on Karkat found himself sitting closer, being the first to slip his hand in Dave's and letting their body parts touch and linger. He even at one point planted a shy, parting kiss on Dave's lips before getting up to accompany Terezi to order her food at the café they picked, and then received the most deafening praise ever as soon as they were out of earshot- or, probably what she considered out of earshot.

"You look crazy happy, Karkles," she said when she was finished, taking a big breath and giving him a pat on the back. "I'm proud of both of you."

"Thanks, Terezi," he said, rolling his eyes. "I was so worried that I'd have to fish for your approval, it's a huge relief to know that I already have it. You know, because it wasn't implied by your weeks of trying to force me into bed with him or anything."

"Aha!" she pointed an accusing finger right in his face. "So you  _did_ get in bed with him."

Karkat didn't even blink. "We share a bed."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I? Do I  _really_ know what you mean? Is Terezi Pyrope  _accusing_ me of purposely dodging a question under the pretense of naivety and therefore implying that I-"

"Wow, shut up. You really do talk a lot, you know that?"

She pretended not to notice when he started glaring at her, so he turned to face the big menu and counter like she was doing with a sort of huff.

"And we didn't, by the way," he felt it necessary to mutter after a while. "Not that it would be any of your business if we did, but we didn't. It's not like we just... fucked and decided to forget about each other."

"Yeah, I can see that," Terezi laughed, turning to look back at their table. Karkat followed her gaze, having to tilt his head some to do. Dave was laughing at something Rose was saying, and Kanaya was smiling; possibly not understanding the joke, possibly trying to be reserved about it. Their legs were touching under the table. "And now, here I am," Terezi sighed dramatically. "The only single one at the table. Am I going to die this way?"

"Hell no," Karkat snorted, giving her a playful nudge. "Anyone would be lucky to have you in  _any_ quadrant, Terezi, you know that. The only reason you're still single is because your beauty intimidates people."

"Does it intimidate you?" she asked suggestively, waggling her eyebrows, and then Karkat laughed and they fell into a comfortable silence. 

The rest of the day went like that; joking and casual and nice. They gossiped about what- or what  _else-_ had happened at the party last night, about how the reason Sollux and Eridan weren't present  _was_ in fact because they were still in bed, about how sickeningly adorable Dave and Karkat were being all of a sudden, etcetera. They had to punch each other in the arm and call each other assholes at least ten times to secure that their masculinity still remained and that being in love didn't weaken a person, but other than that Karkat just dealt with the gooey-dulcet gazes from the three women and spent the majority of the day attached to Dave's arm. (And if he purred once or twice, it was not his fault.)

"Hey, we should all come back to Residence Ala Strider and Vantas for a movie night, good idea?" Dave suggested in the cab back, and then they all made the decision to call Sollux on loudspeaker and invite him and Eridan and the cab driver was shooting them worried looks.

Sollux answered on the fourth ring, in a groggy, slightly annoyed voice. "Hello?"

"Hey, sorry," Dave said. "Were you sleeping?"

"You could thay that."

"Well, do you and your new hot bf wanna come over for a movie night later? Y'know, since you guys totally skipped out on us today. Which was awesome, by the way. We saved the city from an alien attack and then we all got paid millions and millions of dollars. There were explosions and it was beautiful. I'm sorry that you were too busy stuffing your face full of seadweller junk to experience it, but ah, life goes on, doesn't it?"

"By your thtandardth," came Sollux's reply, slightly more amused now, "I  _am_ an alien. And for that matter I have been  _living_ with alienth for the patht... well, a long time. You were thaying about a movie night?"

"Strider's apparently going to hook us up with some 'sick flicks'," Rose said, leaning forward so that her voice could be heard through the receiver better. "It will be one of those overly romanticized double dates, only it will be a triple date, and also Terezi will be there."

"Actually, I have a doctor's appointment," Terezi said.

"So a triple date then," Rose conceded.

"You actually don't have a choice, I just thought I'd make it seem like we're not forcing you so you were more inclined to bring snacks," said Dave.

Sollux's eye roll was almost audible. "Yeah, we'll be there, I gueth." There was the muffled sound of a voice, vaguely British and also slightly annoyed, in the background, and Sollux pulled the phone away from his ear to say something about a movie night. It was a long couple moments before he spoke again. "What time do you want uth over?"

...

When they got back, Karkat offered to walk Terezi to the parking lot (she was taking Kanaya's car) while the others went up to his (and Dave's) room. When he excused himself from the group Dave gave him this dorky-as-all-Hell crooked smile and kissed the corner of his mouth and it was stupid, but it had Karkat's heart fluttering like it was the first time they'd touched in days, and unfortunately luck was beyond him in the field of getting rid of the dopey smile on his face before Terezi noticed.

"I actually cannot stand the romance between you two," she said, shaking her head sort of sadly. "Like, it's actually giving me a cavity."

"A love as brilliant as ours could blind a person, I agree," Karkat said, mock-seriousness. "In your case, it looks like it already did."

"That's not funny," she said, but she was grinning.

They walked in silence, but it was nice, and reminded Karkat vaguely of their High School days together when they'd walk home. Karkat was a lot- a  _lot-_ grouchier back then, so it would usually be a case of him saying something indubitably terrible to Terezi and her bearing with it like the fucking warrior she was, with her humour made of steel, and then a sort of niceness settling between them in the silence in which Karkat would think "is this friendship?" 

"So, what's this invidiously disruptive doctor's appointment for? You'd better be dying, I swear to every fucking God Terezi, because if I have to endure a bunch of stupid movies without you there for condelence I'll probably kill someone, and I'd rather it end up not being my matesprit because I currently need him for romantic purposes."

"Oh, it's just this stupid pain in my back," she said, reaching a hand to rub it now almost absently. "Bad posture, I guess. But I mean, how am I supposed to fight crime and be wonderful if I'm constantly suffering?"

"Well, good luck, and stuff," Karkat kind of mumbled, and then they hugged (it was pathetically sweet and left him feeling all warm and hopeful about college and friendships and stuff) and she got in the car and drove off.

Back in his room, he found that Sollux had already gotten there and was seemingly and appropriately attached to Eridan on the far end of the sofa, the two of them literally close enough that without further inspection you might accidentally mistake them for one dude. Rose and Kanaya were cuddled up under a blanket on the floor and Dave was wrestling a dvd- an actual dvd, behold ladies and gentleman, he is capable of watching something that has not been illegally acquired over the internet- out of its cover. 

"We," he said, slightly out of breath as he finally got the disk in, "tonight, lesbians and gentlemen, are going to be graced with an unironic masterpiece that my Bro and I used to refer to as 'that one movie where Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning successfully  _fucked with your minds_ '. Or for those of you of less horror movie culture know-how, a scary psycho-thriller flick featuring creepy kids and a big house."

"Sounds positively cliquéd," Rose drawled.

Kanaya hit her lap playfully. "Now Rose, I'm sure Dave's choice in movies, although seemingly frivolous and insensate will prove to be admissible despite his slightly inane taste."

Karkat sighed. They did this a lot.

"And don't forget that he grew up in an uncultured, obstreperous environment to begin with, movies are not always his idiosyncrancy."

"His peculiarity?"

"I love when you talk dirty to me."

"Alright, that's enough from the two flighty broads for today," Dave said, shutting them up with a roll of his eyes. "I understood, like, half of that and I am offended, Rose, wounded even. Now everybody shut up and watch the masterpiece." And then everyone shut up and watched the masterpiece.

It ended up being a hundred-minute scary movie, most of which Karkat spent flinching and critiquing, but then again, he'd never really seen the appeal to scary movies. Growing up in Alternia, and with the kind of nightmares he even got sometimes now, the world of human gore and fighting had never been very scary to him, but there was always the acception, and some of the scares in this particular movie had him cringing into Dave's chest. It did give him a very viable excuse to cuddle up to his matesprit without the others judging him. (Even though they were all currently doing the exact same thing.)

It was around 11 when they left Dave and Karkat to strip down to their boxers and crawl under the sheets in complete darkness, hands tracing skin silently and catching on scars and impurities occasionally, but neither spoke about them, just kissed and touched and felt and hesitantly ground against each other sometimes, breathy gasps and nervous moans filling the silence when the crude sounds of their kissing wasn't.

They fell asleep before things could get any more interesting than a few hands ghosting over crotches, though, but Karkat was certainly putting up no complaints when he founds that they had stopped kissing and that he was pleasantly drifting off in the comfort of Dave's arms, that dumb smile on his face refusing to go away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really sorry about my updating schedule!! (or lack thereof.) i'm very disorganised at the moment with writing and i have a bunch of other stuff going on and yeah, please forgive me i have officially mapped out a plot for this fic and will hopefully have my shit together to be updating either daily or every second day from now on. :)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternatively titled: Five Times Dave and Karkat Almost Had Sex and One Time They Did

Sex was not a thing that they discussed.

From Sunday onwards, their lives went on just the same as they had before, though of course now, the time spent not doing work related stuff was spent making out on the couch, and the time spent not making out on the couch was spent doing stupid, time-filling things like walking through campus holding hands and collecting as many ‘aw’s as they possibly could on one lap. Or arguing over movies (which was resolved by kissing), arguing over music (which was resolved by kissing), arguing over socializing (which, surprise, surprise, was resolved by kissing).

It wasn’t until Wednesday that Karkat realised that the problem wasn’t that they weren’t  _having_ sex, but it was that they were ignoring the existence of it altogether: whenever things would get hot and heavy, and Karkat thought that their session of kissing and grinding would turn into something else, something would always come in between them.

The first time it happened was on Sunday, when they were on the couch together. They had been playing video games (an activity wherein Dave beat Karkat by miles at everything he attempted and Karkat bitched and complained and insisted the console was rigged) but had stopped, appropriately, for Dave to steal a victory kiss. Karkat had yelled at him for this, because Dave was cheating and didn’t deserve it, and then they had started arguing. At some point, Karkat found himself in a compromising position with his back against the arm of the sofa and Dave in between his legs, hands tangled in each other’s hair and about 0.1 nanoseconds from ripping at least one item of clothing off, when one of them accidentally kicked a controller and unpaused the game and Dave’s character died. This ended any chance of either of them getting laid, and they went back to arguing.

The second time it happened was on Monday. It was a while after they’d turned all the lights off and gotten in bed, and Karkat was on top of Dave, under the covers, their kisses completely uninterrupted and hands sliding everywhere. It was storming outside, completely drowning out the noise of any cars passing on the highway and any other students in their dorm rooms, and for some reason that really turned Karkat on. He had Dave’s mouth attached to a spot above his collarbone, Dave’s fingers resting under the elastic of his boxers, Dave’s crotch grinding against his every time he moved forward, and then it started raining on them. No, it literally started raining on them. Karkat groaned with discomfort at a very sudden splash of cold on his back, but of course Dave took it the wrong way and just bit harder and lifted his hips to meet his boyfriend’s. Then, he got hit in the face with a drop of water.  Karkat started laughing so hard he had to roll off of Dave and lie on his back, but it was only funny up until the stuff started coming down all at once in three places, a steady, freezing drip. They had multiple leaks in their roof. After that, it took an hour and a half to throw clothes on, go down to reception and find somebody who actually knew how to do something about it, and  _that_ was when they were told that nothing could be done before morning because it would take a while. So they went back to their room, slept on the couch, and by then both of them were too tired to do much else but sloppily entangle their limbs and fall asleep. Karkat had nightmares, but they were only about the water.

On Tuesday, Dave had caught on, even though Karkat hadn’t yet. He waited until it was lunch break to suggest that they go back to their room for lunch, but Karkat was in mid-conversation with Terezi and Sollux about how Aradia was thinking of moving to their school, and by the time Dave managed to tear him away from the table and back to their room, they barely had enough time to get to the couch and out of their shirts before they had to go to their next classes. Karkat had no idea why at the time, but Dave spent the rest of the day sulking and didn’t feel up to making out on the couch after dinner.

On Wednesday morning, Karkat realised what was happening. He woke up early, maybe ten minutes before his alarm was set to go off, and the first thing that he noticed was the way Dave was breathing: apparently, his matesprit had woken early too. The next thing he noticed was that there was something pressing against his thigh, and  _oh,_ that’s what that was. He’d decided to alert Dave to the fact that he was awake by kissing him, and from there they ended up playing a very close game of tonsil hockey until Karkat got it in his mind to move so that he was on top. They were still kissing, Dave’s hands squeezing Karkat’s ass, Karkat’s tangled in his hair. They ignored the alarm when it went off, and just went on kissing, gradually moving on to running their hands over each other’s bodies and tugging at waist bands of boxers. Then Dave shifted, so that his hard-on pressed right against Karkat’s nook through just two layers of fabric, and Karkat gasped and choked out this embarrassing little moan and then their second alarm went off and Dave sighed and pushed him off. The second alarm meant that they were going to be late if they didn’t hurry up now, and even though later Karkat accepted the justification that neither of them could afford to miss any classes with their mid-years coming up, he still acted as mad as he could at Dave for the remainder of their time together during the morning.

He realised in the middle of class, when his professor was lecturing them about the frequent use of symbolism in Shakespeare's romance. They’d nearly had sex four times now. They hadn’t once talked about the prospect of having sex—the conversation seemed too awkward, like it might spoil the mood if one of them had to stop and say “oh, by the way, I have alien junk that you may have never seen before”—but they’d almost gotten that far four times. That thought led to a million others, and though he’d fantasised about sex with Dave before, he found that he was shifting in his seat before class was even over, uncomfortably turned on. When he went for lunch, Dave didn’t even give him the opportunity to walk up to their table before he grabbed him and yanked him into the bathroom. In about half a moment’s notice he had them both locked in a stall and Karkat pressed hard in between a wall and Dave’s body, kissing him long and hard and open-mouthed like he needed him. Then he pulled away, eyes all dark and smoky and started unbuckling Karkat’s pants.

“KK, are you in here?”

Karkat froze at precisely the moment Dave’s hand froze, inches from slipping into his pants.

“Uh… yes?”

“Oh, good. TZ’s looking for you. Apparently you thaid thomething about helping her with homework. Are you thtill gonna do that, or should I tell her you’re buthy?”

Karkat groaned under his breath, closing his eyes and hitting his head back against the stall wall.

“Yeah,” he called back eventually, and when he opened his eyes he thought he’d never seen Dave look quite so pissed in his life. “Yeah, I will, tell her I’ll be there in a second.” He mouthed a sorry to Dave, who then went on to give him a very bitchy silent treatment until seven o’clock that night, but by then the mood had gone and all either of them felt like doing was watching TV.

They didn’t touch each other on Thursday, and by Friday, Karkat was almost certain he was never going to get laid.

His phone went off in the middle of class.

TG: dude where are you

He frowned at the screen for a good five minutes before deciding that he was far enough in the back that his professor wouldn’t see if he decided to type back, especially if he kept his books propped up like they were.

CG: I’M IN CLASS, LIKE EVERY OTHER NORMAL PERSON.

TG: oh what

TG: lame

TG: skip class were going on a date

CG: YEAH, NO WE’RE NOT.

CG: YOU WERE LITERALLY JUST SAYING THE OTHER DAY THAT NEITHER OF US CAN AFFORD TO MISS ANY CLASSES, AND I TOTALLY ONE HUNDRED PER-FUCKING-CENT AGREE WITH YOU BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT HALF THE STUFF DOUCHE PILOT HERE IS SAYING

CG: SO I KIND OF NEED TO LISTEN TO AS MUCH OF IT AS I CAN.

TG: yeah ok i get what youre saying 

TG: but its really not up to you like

TG: i could come kidnap you if i wanted

TG: like just waltz in and up to you

TG: pick you up like

TG: yo ive come to rescue the princess vantas from the boring world of literature

TG: dont mind us go back about your business as usual

TG: and then id carry you out bridal style

TG: i dont have a steed id probably have to make horse noises

CG: PLEASE DON’T.

TG: ahahaha

TG: but seriously dont be a square you need to skip we are going out and you have t minus six minutes starting now

TG: meet me out front Juliet

TG: and wear something nice ;)

Karkat sighed, locking his phone and shoving it back in his pocket. He spent a few moments contemplating whether he should raise his hand and excuse himself (interrupting the entire class and turning all the attention on him) or just attempt to sneak out, finally going with the latter just on the basis that his professor might ask him why he had to leave and he wouldn't be able to come up with an excuse so he'd have to stammer over the explanation that his matesprit/boyfriend was taking him somewhere.

He committed to the walk of shame down the isle of chairs with a face as proud as he could muster, practically running out the door once he'd gotten past without his professor turning around to stare him down.

As soon as he was outside, he took in his first breath of freedom, speed-walking up to his room to get changed. After standing there debating what to wear for what felt like an hour (because seriously, what was Dave's definition of "something nice", the guy barely ever even wore clothes in the first place) he gave up and just threw on black jeans and a button-down. On his way out the door, he stopped, muttering a quick "fuck" under his breath before running back and grabbing a tie.

His hair was probably still messy from a day of running around to classes, but he really didn't think he could afford to worry about it now, hurrying down the stairs two at a time while he furiously tried to do the stupid tie up.

Dave was waiting for him out front just like he'd said, wearing a black jacket over his red shirt and managing to look ten times better dressed than Karkat, even though his jeans were grey and his converse were kind of scuffed. But damn, he cleaned up nice, and this wasn't even a suit. 

As soon as he was in his line of sight Dave did a gigantically obvious double take and a pan up and down his entire body, finally meeting him at eye level (Karkat assumed it was eye level, though he couldn't tell with those ridiculous shades back in place) and grinning. "God, you're hot. Ready to go?"

Karkat begrudgingly took his hand when he stuck it out in offering. Dave walked them around back to the parking lot, right up to Kanaya's car. When he was shot a questioning look, his only answer was a grin and an obnoxious jingle of her keys. Which had on them a chainsaw trinket and a picture of her and Rose. Sickly, those two.

Dave made him look at his lap the whole time they drove ("It's this or a blind fold, dude, no arguing") and made infuriatingly vague comments about how nice the place was that they were going and how awesome their night was going to be. Then he moved on to how great Karkat looked in button-down shirts and ties and how he should wear one or the other more often. Karkat finally felt the car stop some ten or so minutes later, and Dave told him he could look up.

He frowned immediately.

"I can't afford to eat here."

Dave rolled his eyes, but otherwise said nothing as he got out of the car and came around to open Karkat's for him. 

Karkat didn't move. "Dave. Dave, I can't afford to eat here. I'm a student. I'm broke. This is a very expensive, very fancy restaurant for pretentious rich people who don't wear jeans with their button-downs and I can't afford to eat here."

"That's why I'm paying, genius," Dave said, undoing his seatbelt for him and giving his arm a tug. "Or, Bro's paying, but anyway. Come _oooon_ , you _shiiit_ , I'm trying to be roman _tiiiiiiiiic-_ "

"Oh, my God, I will go and spend all the money your brother has just in the interest of buying some fucking silence for once."

Dave grinned. "That's all I needed to hear, babe, you are the romantic-est, you have won my hear, I am yours now and forev-"

"That sure sounds like silent to me," Karkat sighed dramatically, getting out of the car and shutting the door behind him.

"I'm paying you back for this somehow, I hope you know that." He didn't protest when Dave slid his hand in Karkat's, and they walked up together like that, hands swinging sort of uncomfortably between them when they stopped and waited to be seated, and Dave said, in this really proud voice, "Reservation for Strider."

The woman looked from them to her book and then back again, smiling pleasantly with a mouth of red lipstick. "Mr and Mrs Strider?"

Dave was still grinning when she showed them to their table.

It ended up being at a little table at the back with a scarlet cloth and a single candle, glowing an undramatic amount of a rosy-hued light from inside its holder. 

A mood that was 'guilty and awkward' soon turned to 'chatty and relaxed', which then turned into 'totally fucking in love', and before their meals had even come (they ordered dessert first, because they were dorks and the restaurant served créme brulée and seriously who would want to risk being too full to eat créme brulée) Karkat found himself more at ease than he had been all week. He was laughing at all of Dave's jokes- really fucking loudly, too, though neither of them really cared all too much whether they were stared at by the pretentiously dressed crowd around them (which they were) or if the waiters gave them weird looks (which they did).

They only stayed long enough to get halfway through meals that were almost as rich as their prices implied before Dave stood up, smile all dorky and ridiculous and said, "I really wish we could stay and finish this  _pâtes et de la merde,_ " he pronounced it with a flawless accent, "but we have reservations elsewhere. Or, well, not reservations exactly- you'll see."

Karkat blinked, and then stood, trying to keep up with his matesprit as he very briskly paid at the front of the restaurant and swept back outside into the cold. Dave didn't make him look down at his lap this time, apparently confident that he wouldn't guess where they were going- or maybe he just didn't care. Either way, it took exactly six minutes of driving back in the direction they'd come for Karkat to figure it out.

"No."

Dave clicked his tongue. "Not an Abba fan, right, well I guess-"

"No, I'm not talking about the radio," and he _was_ an Abba fan, "I know exactly what you're thinking and where we're going and I would just like to let you know in advance that the answer is no, I am not going to step foot in one of those obnoxious noise holes. Lord even knows why they exist in the first place, because there has to be something seriously wrong with your think pan for you to consider  _liking_ going there."

Dave pouted, side-eyeing him as he drove; notably not making any abrupt turns to go back home. "Aw, babe, no. No, don't be like that. Clubs are great. I grew up in clubs."

"That is arguably the saddest single sentence I think I've ever heard you say."

"Arguably because there's a part of you that knows growing up in clubs would be the sweetest deal. And it was. My bro had me working the turntables up there when I was, like, five."

"Dave I don't care how old you were when you sold your soul to the clubbing industry I am not stepping one foot in that place oh my God you are turning into the parking lot you are actually parking the car as we speak you are putting Kanaya's precious Camaro into park like the fucking jackass you are oh my God the lights are on in there and there are probably drunk people dancing Dave do not make me go I am not going you cannot make me- mm!" He was shut up with a pair of vaguely cold, vaguely sweet-tasting lips on his, but Dave pulled away before it could even really become a kiss, wearing one of those stupidly endearing crooked smiles of his.

"Okay, first of all, you know nothing about cars, Rose was kidding when she said it was a Camaro. It's not even a Chevy. But you're pretty, and all my knowledge of cars comes from the crappy collection of magazines Bro used to leave around to get my goat, so I'll let it slide." He leaned across to take Karkat's face in one hand, seatbelt restricting him some. "Karkat. Dearest, loving-est Karkat. You know that I'm fond of you. I value your ass too much to put it in any slightly dangerous situation, so I can promise you that tonight will be one hundred percent safe and that you are in no danger of being trampled by a group of drunk women or anyone else. Bro knows the guy that owns this place: like, we don't even have to line up to get in. How cool is that? Wicked cool is the answer by the way, just in case you were thinking it was anything else. Anyway," he cleared his throat, and then announced in a loud voice, "Reasons you should come into the club with me."

"Oh no."

"One," he ticked off invisible pointed on his fingers. "I can't dance, and you can't dance. Not dancing together would be hilarious. Two: I'm not planning on drinking, so I promise I will spend the entire evening delightfully sober, and we can leave at your leisure if you  _really_ aren't having fun, but, three: you will have fun."

Karkat sighed, looking down at his lap. "Dave, I really don't know if-"

"Four," he said, pressing his lips to Karkat's throat suddenly; the troll shuddered and sighed. "If you cooperate, and let me give you the most kickin' night of your life," kisses, all the way down his neck and along his jawline, eliciting little shuddered off-beat breaths, "Later, we can go home, and I will fuck your brains out on our bed."

Karkat moaned, tipping his head back against the seat. The click of Dave's belt meant that he was able to lean forward better now, and he bit down on a spot right above Karkat's collar bone. It occurred to him moments later that he had shut his eyes, and he opened them right around the time Dave decided to pull away, glasses hanging just far enough down the bridge of his nose that Karkat could see two intensely focused red eyes on his throat. Dave grinned and pushed his shades back up.

"Karkat," he said. 

"Karkat's not here," Karkat said, burying his head in his hands and tipping it back against the seat again. "Karkat wandered off and died somewhere right around the time you started kissing my neck."

"Dude, Karkat," he said again, more persistently, so Karkat peeked out from behind his hands.

"What."

"You have a hickey."

He dropped both hands. Looked at Dave in utter disbelief. "No."

Dave was nodding viciously by the time he thought to tear open the mirror, and sure enough, right there on his neck a dark spot of red was forming steadily, glaring back at him big and ugly. "Oh, God," he wailed, throwing his head down on the glove box. "Now I definitely can't go in there. Congratulations, you idiot, now the entire population is going to know that I bleed a fucking mutant shade of red. Oh my God. Oh, my God, I am going to have to miss classes."

Dave's smile disappeared, and Karkat saw briefly out the corner of his eye as his matesprit's expression turned serious. "Dude, what's the big deal? Culling and shit is illegal here, no one's gonna-"

Karkat sat up. "It's still- it's hard to explain, okay? I mean, I don't care if  _you_ know what colour my blood is... or any of you humans for that matter, because you live in this weird-ass society where all your racism is based on  _skin_ colour, like that isn't the most fucked up thing ever. But it's like... okay, so you know how you wear your shades? It's because your eyes are red, right?"

Dave's expression suddenly turned defensive, and then shy. He looked down. "Yeah."

Karkat nodded. "Right. And I know how you don't care if I know that they're that colour- I mean, why else would you take them off around me?- but it's not the same with other humans, right? Because their eyes aren't red? And even if you know that you're perfectly safe, that no one's gonna hurt you for it anymore... you still know that they'll be thinking things about you. Thinking you're weird, that you're mutated, or whatever. That's why it feels best to hide things like that, and I get it, I really do."

Dave was quiet, and Karkat was quiet, and for the longest time it was just the two of them sitting there in this perfect silence, though not the deafening kind that makes you want to scream to see if you can break it because there was music coming from the club; hideous music with a repetitive beat that Dave probably could have made sound so much better with five minutes and a set of turntables. Finally, quietly, Dave asked, "Is it the same with your scars?"

Karkat nodded, making perfect eye contact with his shades. 

Dave nodded to himself, looked down slightly, for a second, and then back up. "But you've been shirtless around me. Multiple times."

Karkat shrugged. "Well, I mean, you've seen them. And I'm comfortable around you, so it's like- okay, this is going to sound dumb, but- it's like, it feels less like they're scars and more like they're memories, sometimes. Instead of feeling like they're these big, ugly beacons that are telling everyone what an ass I am, they feel like maybe they mean something, like each one has this story and it's okay to tell that story because I trust you, and- yeah, okay, it sounds even dumber than I thought it would, wow."

"No, shit, I-" Dave shook his head, and then, amidst a sigh, he took his shades off, placed them in the middle compartment, and took Karkat's hands in his. "I love you, okay? And I understand. Jesus, I understand, I've never understood someone or had them understand me so perfectly before and it's like- okay, so I'm bad with words. I'm sorry I gave you a hickey. I get it- I didn't, but now I do, so I have an idea. If you go in there like that, just like, be a mutant and not give a shit what anyone thinks because they're all probably assholes who take clubs too seriously anyway, then I'll do it too."

Karkat blinked, understanding. "I couldn't ask you to-"

"Yeah, you're right, because  _you're not asking._ I've already made up my mind and this is happening, so... yeah."

Karkat smiled. He felt lame, so he lent in and kissed Dave fervently, fingers tangling in his hair, and pulled away to look into red eyes. "Okay," he said, voice cracking a little. "I mean, yes. Let's do it. Take me clubbing."

"Let's be mutants together?" Dave offered, grinning spectacularly, and Karkat kissed him again.

He texted Kanaya on the way in to let her know that she could pick up the car, in case they were there late; the walk was only a few minutes longer than the carride anyway. Just as Dave said, they were able to jump the queue and get in right away: he referred to the bouncer by name and they shared an eerily professional fist bump before they were allowed through.

Inside was slightly different to what he'd seen from movies. Sure, there was the loud 'thump thump' of generic-beat club music that got louder and shouted over the ringing that started up in your ears as soon as you were inside. But there was no feeling of hazy magic when they got in, no gorgeous strangers dancing intricately and men being rejected hilariously from bars. Mostly, it was just a clump of people grinding on each other and a queue of men at the bar while countless women walked away with colourful drinks. 

Dave had to lean right down to his ear to be heard. "Welcome to the lamest and greatest place in the world. Now, let me teach you how to shadow." He took Karkat's hand, and they started to descend through the crowd. Dave appeared to be looking for someone, until he apparently found them, stopping abruptly and pointing to the back of some douchey guy in a faux-leather vest. He leant down again: "Watch this."

Then, Dave proceeded to walk right up to him, inches away from his back, and copy his movements exactly.

Karkat was close to doubling over from trying to hold in his laughter when he came back, smiling triumphantly.

He leant up. "Oh, my God. No way. No fucking way. You're totally an asshole."

"What, did you think I went to clubs because I actually thought they were  _cool?_ Dude, the only cool thing about clubs is how stupid everyone is. Alright, your turn."

Karkat was nervous when he walked up to him, but the guy seemed too involved in dancing horribly to notice him, and after a while, it became pretty easy to mimic the exaggerated moves he was pulling. Dave was hunched over laughing when he came back.

They spent a long time like that, playing shadows and laughing and pretending to pick each other up from the bar with ridiculous lines and soap-opera-worthy gasps and 'take me home now's. They'd been there long enough to see a general change of audience at least twice when they found themselves among the grinders in the crowd, at first mimicking everyone's stupid dance moves to the beat of some god-awful song. Somewhere along the line, mimicking had turned to trying out simple moves of their own, and then that had turned to Karkat's hands on Dave's shoulders, gasping hotly into his ear while they rutted, lost in a sea of bad clothing and coloured hair and completely unheard over the heavy bass. Dave had bitten at his neck enough times and Karkat was turned on enough that he thought he might seriously be in danger of losing his virginity in public if they didn't double back to their room now, so he grabbed Dave's hand and they left together, the colour of their cheeks matching perfectly.

For a long moment, upon bursting outside, Karkat had a genuine fear that the static-y noise was just his ears fucking up, but no: it was raining. And Kanaya's car wasn't there any more.

"Shit," Karkat muttered, the previous mood of excitement and blatant want teetering its way out the window at the sight of the rain. "Shit," he said again, and Dave started laughing.

"No, shit, you don't get to laugh. I don't have an umbrella, call a cab."

"Dude," Dave said, laughter dying.

He was literally just standing out there in the rain, slowly getting drenched, and staring at Karkat through his wet blonde hair like he was the idiot in this situation.

"Fuck, it's freezing," Karkat groaned, rubbing his arms. "Oh, my God, I knew we shouldn't have gone in. Do you see what happens when I listen to you? I end up wet and cold." Rain had ruined sex for him twice now. Fuck you, rain.

"Dude," Dave said again, looking incredulous. "Are you kidding me right now. Like, five seconds ago, you seemed pretty damn happy to be in there, don't blame this on me. I didn't piss off the thunder-gods and ask them to piss down on our perfect little evening. It's not even a big deal, we'll just walk in the rain."

"Hell if I'm walking!"

"I'd threaten to leave you here but you're the only reason I want to go home right now, so."

He knew that the tone of voice and look in his boyfriend's eyes was supposed to turn his blood to fire again, but all it did now was piss him off. He was suddenly very, very uninterested.

"Either call a cab," he said, folding his arms, "or I'm not coming home."

Dave raised an eyebrow, all jokes gone from his expression. "Is that so?"

"Mhm."

"Is it?"

"Mmhm."

"So, you wouldn't mind if I left you here all alone then? Went home to finish myself off, on your side of the bed? Shit, you wouldn't even get to see."

The shiver that forced its way through his body- not just at the words, but at the look on Dave's face- was almost comical, but even more hilarious was how vehemently opposed he was to acknowledging it. "You can go right the fuck ahead, douche bag." And if his voice shook, it definitely, one hundred percent was not his fault. Nope.

The look in Dave's eyes told him he knew exactly what kind of game he was playing at. Slowly, a smile formed on his face.

"What are you- oh my fucking God are you crazy what the shit stop!"

Dave yanked him out into the rain, catching him when he stumbled and stumbling with him, laughing loudly while Karkat flailed and honest to God tried to swat the rain away.

"Fuck you this is so gross I am so wet I hate rain this is the worst you are the shittiest excuse for a matesprit and I hope you- mph!"

Dave cut him off with a  kiss, apparently one of his favourite activities as of the moment, hard and wet with rain. Heat returned vigorously as Dave spun them, pinning Karkat against the brick wall of the club that was unprotected from the rain. His kisses were sloppy and thoughtless and perfect, an awkward mashing of lips and tongue against rain and fingers grabbing at shirts, at hair, at hips. And then Dave shoved his hand in Karkat's pants.

The noise that the troll made was loud but mostly drowned out by the rain, and he threw his head forward onto Dave's shoulder, breathing hard as the blonde struggled to touch him through his boxers, wrist trapped under the tight waistband of his jeans. "You know I'm… starting to think you have a thing for- oh- exhibitionism, Dave."

Dave smirked, mouth on his neck, tongue licking up rain at a deliciously torturous pace. "Mm," he made a sound of consideration, and his fingers found the outline of Karkat's bulge, which was about three quarters unsheathed now, "mostly I think I just have a thing for seeing you flustered, Karkitty."

Karkat rolled his eyes, but he was only able to do so for a second before they closed and his head landed on Dave's shoulder again. Dave's fingers- long and ridiculously skilled, Karkat had never had so much appreciation for whoever invented guitars and turntables- continued to feel around the fabric of his boxers. They slipped lower, and seemingly out of nowhere, as if he'd known where the find it all along, he pressed two fingers right against Karkat's nook.

"O-oh shit Dave, not here, I'll-"

"Come home, then," Dave said, pressing his smirk right up against Karkat's neck. "You're wet anyway now. In two places, feels like."

"Fffuck you- ah stop."

Dave stopped, pulling his hand out of the Cancer's pants and kissing him briefly and lovingly. "Let's go so you can scream my name somewhere it's legal, babe."

Karkat folded his arms. "I don't scream."

Dave grinned. "We'll see." He stepped back and held out his hand, and it took Karkat a solid fifteen seconds to work out what he wanted him to do. "Oh my God," he said, grinning. "You are so fucking cheesy I can't even stand it."

"Come on, it'll be like one of your gay rom-coms," Dave insisted, grinning back. "We'll run home together in the rain and declare our love to the world by screaming it."

The rain had picked up; Dave had to yell to be heard now, especially since he'd stepped back.

"I'm fucking freezing!" Karkat yelled, rubbing his arms for emphasis. "I can't even- running just gets you wetter, dickface, why do we even need to run."

"Romance, you ass." Dave yelled back, and then they were both laughing and Karkat put his hand in Dave's and they ran. They stopped to kiss every few minutes, though, against lampposts and through heavy gasps of rainwater and tongue, and probably would have made it back sooner and drier if not for the fact. When they did get back, they were still laughing, trying to keep as quiet as possible even though 2 am on campus wasn't that late and there were still people up. They clung to each other and laughed while trying to fumble to get the door open like a pair of drunks, but then as soon as it was open and they were inside the mood switched from playful like someone had pressed a button, and Dave had Karkat trapped against the door with his knee between his thighs.

They kissed hot and open-mouthed for about a minute, before Dave pulled away and said, "God damn it, I am so cold. We should take a shower."

"Oh," said Karkat, only somewhat in disappointment. He guessed he could wait a couple more minutes for them to be less freezing. "No, I mean, yeah, okay. You can, uh, take the first one if you want."

Dave frowned, looking disappointed. "I said we, didn't I?"

"Uh, yes?"

"We as in both of us. As in you and I. Together."

Oh. Oh. Karkat blinked, thrown off guard suddenly, and spluttered, "That's really not necessary, I mean, I don't even think we'd both fit in the shower and anyway it seems kind of impractical to, uh, yeah."

Embarrassed, he watched for Dave's reaction, expecting him to laugh at him when really, he should have been kissing him again. Instead, he was surprised to see his matesprit hold up his palms and take a step back. "Cool, okay. I can respect that."

"I, uh." Karkat blinked. "What?"

"You should have said something," Dave said, laughing awkwardly and scratching the back of his neck. "Before I, like, shoved my hand in your pants. But I mean, I'm totally fine with waiting, because it's like, I love you. I'm not just in this for your hot bod, which is particularly hot in those jeans by the way, damn. But I, uh. Oh God how do I even explain this. I want to, like. I want to kiss you until I can't breathe, and fuck you into the mattress of our bed and make you feel so good that you forget every name that isn't mine, but I also want to lie in bed with you until 3pm watching dorky movies and hold your hand in public and listen to you rant in a sleepy voice about how stupid you think I am, and go shopping for fucking curtains or something and take you home to meet my fucked up version of a family because I am in love with you. And. Anyway, I completely respect you and would never pressure you into jumping into something too fast, because I get that you've never done this before and all, so, yeah. Sorry."

Karkat stared on, unable to speak. It was only when Dave shifted awkwardly and embarrassed and went to turn away that he shot back to life, reaching to grab him by the front of his soaked shirt and yank him back forwards. "Are you trying to make me cry, you hopeless shit stain?" He muttered into his neck, pressing almost methodical kisses up on his tip-toes. "I swear to God, I drop every hint in the book and you still don't fucking get it."

"Uh. Wh-what?" Dave was a little distracted, apparently, by the lips on his neck: or maybe he really was just this stupid.

Regardless, Karkat rolled his eyes, tugged him forwards, and pressed their hips flush together. Dave gasped. "I want this, idiot," he growled into the blonde's throat, and pressed another bout of kisses. "I don't want to share clumsy hand jobs with you in some tiny shower before the hot water runs out, I want… all of that, all of what you just said. I'm in love with you too, okay? I want this."

Dave sighed out a shaky breath as Karkat pressed a particularly long kiss onto a sensitive spot on his neck, and Karkat took advantage to start unbuckling his pants, fumbling with the belt for a second before he got to the easy part of popping the button and dragging the zipper down. Dave shivered.

"Tell me what you want," he said. His voice was quiet.

"Mm, I want…" Karkat thought about it, face still in Dave's neck. "What you said. Want you to kiss me until you can't breathe and fuck me into our mattress and make me scream and then stay in bed with me tomorrow until 3 in the afternoon. Shit, oh God. I need you to touch me. Like, now."

Dave complied, coming to life suddenly and attacking him in a needy kiss, his hands sliding everywhere at once for a moment and then tugging his tie down and off, moving to the hem of his shirt next. Karkat pulled away just long enough so that they could get it over his head, and then did it again for Dave's. They stumbled to get to the bed, laughing and falling over each other in between kisses in initially-futile attempts at pulling their wet jeans off. Karkat's were only half off when they got to bed and Dave pushed him, staring him down with smoky eyes as he crawled to hover above him, straddling his hips while they kissed. He started to pepper a rain of kisses down his body, long fingers taking their time to touch and explore certain parts of skin, catching on scars and rubbing up and down his sides as his lips got lower. "You smell like a wet dog," he remarked in a chuckle against his stomach, and Karkat resisted the urge to swat his head by moving to sit up on his elbows, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, and you smell like a fucking bouquet of roses." Dave's fingers stopped at the waistband of his boxers, and he moved to pull Karkat's jeans the rest of the way down, coming back up to rest his hands on Karkat's hips. He looked up, eyes all smoky and dark and pupils blown wide. Karkat nodded, nervous now.

Dave moved back down to roll the fabric of the boxers down and out of the way, dragging his lips along Karkat's thigh right behind the fabric as it descended.

Karkat watched with a borderline mortified expression as Dave paid his bulge a small smile, taking it in one hand and bringing it to his mouth. He nuzzled along its side with his mouth, expression turning hazy, foccussed. Gingerly, he ran his tongue from base to tip in one, long stripe, took the tip into his mouth, and sucked.

Karkat whined, almost shaking with the effort not to cant his hips upwards.

There was something unbearably confronting about looking away and feeling Dave just  _doing_ stuff to him, so he had no choice but to look, kept up on shaky elbows as Dave explored every inch of him with his lips and tongue, nibbling down the side of his bulge and sucking on the tip, alternating with his tongue and hand.

“Squirmy little fella, isn’t he?” he mumbled. Karkat kneed him in the head.

“Ouch. No kicking, you ass, I’m going down on you. Sheesh, and you think you’d be grateful or something.”

Karkat opened his mouth to reply, trying to decide between calling him a ‘shitmonger’ and a ‘cockpony’, but barely got out the first syllable before a loud, surprised moan shot forward: Dave’s mouth had found his nook.

He licked a long stripe up its length, fingers still wrapped around his bulge, and then really got to work, doing the sorts of things Karkat thought only happened in porn. The movements of his tongue were downright  _sinful,_ and after five minutes of enduring through them a panting, gasping mess, he had to ask. “Have you—fuck—have you done this before, o-or something?”

Dave looked up, red eyes dark, looking slightly bemused. “Done what?” he asked, holding Karkat’s bulge sort of close to his face. “Sex?”

“Well, yeah,” Karkat said, and jesus, how long had his chest been rising and falling like that? “That. But also, um. With… with a troll?”

Dave seemed terribly amused by the fact that Karkat was near-rambling, and hummed in thought, stroking his bulge with feather light teasing touches as if absentmindedly. “Mm, sex, yeah. I mean, I’m not as much of a slut as John, but sure, I’ve like. Gotten around, I guess. I could walk you through my embarrassingly unimpressive list of lays some time, but I doubt you want to hear about the one awkward time I saw Terezi’s troll-junk while I’m meant to be tongue-deep in yours.”

Karkat aimed for a noise of complaint, but the only he could muster sounded more like one of unabashed desire as Dave dove back down, thrusting his tongue deep inside and lighting on fire those nerves Karkat had only been partially aware of up until now. Sure, he’d been aware of his own sensitivity—but to this level?

“Oh, God,  _fuck,_ Dave.”

Dave mumbled something that very well could have been ‘that’s my name, don’t wear it out’, but Karkat was so far away from even being slightly able to shoot something sarcastic back. And if felt so  _good,_ so unbelievably good and hot and perfect, not at all like how he had expected his first time to go; still, he could hear the conversation with Kanaya back in High School, the way she’d laughed at him when he asked what losing your virginity was like and how she’d said it was “awkward, slightly disappointing and patient, but then again, that depends on the person you’re with.” His mind waded through useless, jumbled thoughts as Dave slipped first one finger in, then two, alternating between working them in and out of Karkat and eating him out at the same time, tongue doing impossible things to him. Karkat thread his fingers through Dave’s hair over and over, panting and whispering indistinguishable things to him. He didn’t remember lying down, but suddenly he was, barely able to see Dave anymore unless he craned his neck. And fuck, he was close, too close for how short a time they’d been doing this, and, not wanting to embarrass himself, it wasn’t long before he scrambled to his elbows again and tried to nudge Dave’s head off of him.

Dave pulled away, dark eyes dropped to half-mast, and Karkat watched in almost idle horror as his bulge, previously squirming in one of Dave’s hands, tugged itself free and wrapped through Dave’s hair. Dave looked up curiously, lids still low, bright red across the white of his cheeks slightly paler than the colour of his own blood. The sight had the troll choking around a shuddery little breath, so it took slightly longer than usual for him to gather up the willpower to speak. He found that when he could, he had no idea what to say, so he sort of just mumbled the words ‘come here’ and helped Dave forward to straddle his hips, dragging him by the back of the neck in for a violently enamoured kiss. It was messy and he could taste his own genetic material and Dave was more than a little hard against his right thigh but Karkat didn’t care, arms strewn lazily around his mateprit’s shoulders as he kissed him achingly hard. “I’m gonna come if you keep that up, you insufferable shitsniffer,” he mumbled against Dave’s lips, wearing  a dorky smile himself. “Want to touch you too.”

Dave moaned just at his words, and, as he slid his hips for desperate friction against Karkat’s thigh again, it occurred to the troll just how much he’d been holding back.

In explanation, as if he knew exactly what Karkat was thinking, Dave said, “I want to make your first time as great as it can be, because mine kind of wasn’t. Want to make you feel so fucking good, shit." He pressed kisses all down Karkat's neck as he said this, breath hard and hot and puffed out against Karkat's collar bone. "Love you so much, jesus christ, I'm gonna make you feel so good Karkat, so good, I just-" Karkat cut him off with a kiss, bruisingly hard, and pulled away almost out of breath to hold him close by the back of his neck and pant, "Then don't be so gentle, fuckass. I don't want you to think you have to... hold back or anything, okay?" His cheeks were overtly red. Dave stared for a second, at what he could see of Karkat's face that wasn't pointed promptly down and away from him, and then smiled.

"Sure thing, kittycat," he said, and then he knocked Karkat flat on his back.

From there he was attacked with a myriad of kisses up and down his throat, as he felt Dave's hands come up to slide under his knees and guide his legs open more.  He pulled away to take his own boxers down, and Karkat sat up, kissing him again. Then, he looked down.

"Huh."

"What, like you've never seen a human dick before."

"Who says I have?"

Dave rolled his eyes. "Your internet search history, probably."

"Shut up," Karkat grumbled, but kissed him again nonetheless, tentatively reaching down to give his dick an experimental stroke. Dave sighed gently, and rested his head against Karkat's shoulder. Feeling braver now, Karkat wrapped his hand around it and tried to stroke it like he did his own bulge, finding the movement was a little different since the shape and feel of it was so unlike his own. Different didn't necessarily mean bad, though, he though, finding that after a while of listening to Dave pant and gasp he was practically having to physically restrain himself from grinding against his lap. So it was probably more abruptly than he'd intended when he pulled away, met Dave's lips in a crushing kiss, and slid himself down on Dave's cock.

Dave's first reaction was to cry out, bury his head in Karkat's neck, and grip his hips bone-crushingly hard. Karkat hid his own face in Dave's hair, caught somewhere between breathing him in and admiring the familiar scent of his shampoo, and foccussing on clinging to the border between pleasure and pain as he adjusted. 

"F-fuck, oh God, that's tight, that should not be that, ah, tight, Karkat, Jesus."

"Sh-shut the fuck up, I'm- oh- adjusting... wait a second." _  
_

Dave waited, patient and trembling, and in the short forty or so odd seconds it took for him to relax around Dave, Karkat felt the situation was incredibly intimate. Not just because they were having sex, and not just because Dave was, well, _inside_ of him. But he had to think that there was just something terribly intimate about the slight pain, the crushing grip on his hips, the patient and shaky puffs of breath on his neck. Everything about the way Dave was handling him was very real and very intimate and the love he felt, all painfully persistent in his chest and squirming in his gut, was enough that he had to tug Dave's face up for a single minute of kissing in deafening silence. Then, he started to move.

Dave was loud, he found, almost right away, and it didn't take long for him to pick up on what his matepsrit was like in bed, find what he liked best and what got the lesser responses. Dave kissed and bit and sucked at his neck, hands sliding over every available inch of skin as he stammered off incoherent fragments of speech into Karkat, pieces of 'i love you's and 'mine's and 'god, so fucking perfect for me'. Every praise had him moaning and panting and keening louder, nails drawing white and pink lines in Dave's back.

Dave twisted his fingers through Karkat's hair, lips under his chin, and right as Karkat came down on him, his thumb brushed one of his horns.

Karkat's hips stuttered, and he froze on Dave, clenching around him. "Ah!"

" _Oh,_ " and that was probably at the clenching, "sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot you don't-"

"D-do that again."

Dave was quiet for a heartbeat, breath puffing out against Karkat's chin, and then his finger, tentatively, brushed the horn again.

This time Karkat leaned his head down on Dave's shoulder and ground his hips into Dave's. "Oh fuck yes."

As if awoken, Dave's fingers flew to attention, working around the small horns and rubbing them at the base, stimulating the nerves until Karkat was moaning loud enough to wake all of Chicago, bouncing on his cock again with an alarming ferocity, though his movements were slowly becoming very off-beat.

"Thought you didn't like that," Dave grunted, against Karkat's neck, and rubbed his thumb in a complete circle around his left horn, hips snapping up to meet a particularly hard thrust down from Karkat.

"Fuck! Oh God, no, I like it, please don't stop, it's- ahh, Jesus, Dave, feels so fucking good."

"They're sensitive, huh," came his matesprit's reply, a quiet, craving growl against his shoulder before he bit down.

Karkat yelped out again, and then his next moan was so violent it was almost a sob. "Y-yes, they're sensitive, the nerve endings are- ah oh God oh fuck- less spread out because they're smaller- ah shit Dave love you so much please don't stop don't stop feels so good Dave Dave please."

"Karkat, I need to- fuck, I need to move more, need to, oh God."

Karkat nodded, and that was all it took for Dave to throw his weight down to pin Karkat to the bed, slamming into him at full speed now.

It was all Karkat could do to cling on for the ride, overstimulated and so in love he couldn't stand it, nails raking bloodied lines down Dave's back and legs wrapped so tight around his matesprit's waist he could hardly breathe. His every breath became a sob, and the line between pleasure and orgasm drew on so long that it almost became painful.

Through a haze of whimpering and moaning and clawing at Dave's back, the blonde found his way to Karkat's neck and bit at it again, erecting near-wails of pleasure from his partner. His voice was low and hot and vibrated the skin of Karkat's throat when he spoke between bites.

"Mine," he growled, possessive. Karkat screamed when he came.

Somewhere through seeing absolute white and totally fucking up the skin of his boyfriend's already scarred back, Dave came, too, as by the time Karkat came around he was pulling out and collapsing next to him, breathing hard and eyes shut. Karkat curled into his body, arm draped across his chest, and then the two of them just lay there together in the near complete darkness, the only sounds being their intertwining breaths as they came from frantic, to normal, to sleepy.

It was ages before either of them spoke, and even then it was in whispers, the curtains left open and the passing cars beaming white lights through metres of foliage and half-drawn venetian blinds in two places onto Karkat's hip and Dave's cheek. 

Dave traced his fingertips over every inch of Karkat's body, finding each individual scar and asking for its story. Karkat tried to remember as many of them as he could, and keep his stories as honest as he could, his own fingers catching Dave's and linking their fingers sometimes when he spoke quietly.

"This one?"

"Relapse. Gamzee got a boyfriend and wasn't home as often, and I got lonely."

"This one?"

"Um, back in High School, I think. It was meant to be just a small one, because I'd had a shitty day, but my fingers slipped and it ended up really deep and I couldn't stop it bleeding for a while. I wasn't scared though, y'know? I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to not die, either."

He started doing the same for Dave, eventually, though a small variety of his stories were less "I got beat up at school because of my shades" and "it occurred to me one evening that I was more numb than I was sad and it made me sad" and more "swordfight with Bro. The fucker has terrible aim sometimes and I was  bad at dodging" and "oh man, it was the stupidest thing. I don't remember most of it because I was drunk but from what Jade has told me it involved a staircase, some broken bottles, and a prank gone wrong with John and a puppet." The stories were nice, because they were all true ones, ones of his own that Karkat had never told anyone and ones of Dave's that he never would tell anyone, because they felt too private and special.

 _This_ was intimacy at its finest, he thought, even more intimate than when they had quite literally been merged together: just like this, legs tangled half under the covers, Dave's fingers tracing up and down patterns on Karkat's hip, lights from the highway sending dancing patterns of Dave's eyelashes on his cheek. It started raining again some hours later when they'd run out of stories and were simply lying together, and Dave moved them under the covers so that Karkat could curl into his heat and shut his eyes. He wasn't sure how long it was before he fell asleep, but when he did, he didn't dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they did it they frick fracked oh my  
> i have been getting a lot of corrections lately and while they're super awesome and helpful i just want to quickly put it out there that for personal reasons my life at the moment is very scheduled (gross right) and i only get a veeery limited amount of time on the internet: so i don't edit my work. i promise i'm not a dumbass because i know i do things sometimes that you'd probably look at and go, wow, are you sure you're not a dumbass bc look at this  
> i'm not okay uh  
> sorry  
> i should really edit my work, i might go through it all and edit it someday but yeah  
> thank you everyone for your support and lovely comments! let's just accept that i am horrid at updating and leave it at that, yo.  
> aaaaalso hi, i was thinking about making a companion fic to this that's like, maybe dave's or karkat's view of high school via a oneshot? it would either be shameless smut or really really angsty stuff (or, y'know, both, which is just how i like my fanfiction, full of tears and porn), but i was wondering what you guys would think of that?


	18. Chapter 18

There is something wholly glorious, Dave thought, about being woken up with a blow job.

After getting possibly one of the best nights of sleep of his entire existence, completely nightmare-free and tangled in sheets that smelt of coconut with his boyfriend’s warm body wrapped around him, he had the unmitigated pleasure of waking up to the sensation of something wet and warm encompassing the head of his dick. Briefly, he thought he might have remembered dreaming about something like this—just dreams being confused with reality, he guessed—but from the moment he was awake, he didn’t last very long at all. He opened his eyes to catch Karkat sinking down on him, cheeks hollowing out and expression concentrated, and then as if he’d flipped a switch, the troll looked up, smirked, and Dave came.

They ended up spending the day like that, lying in bed and watching bad movies on Dave’s laptop, kissing contently and having lazy, dreamy sex. The might really not have gotten out of bed at all, for the entire rest of Saturday, except at around 3:30 in the afternoon there was a knock at the door, and Dave heard a number of people erupt into a fit of laughter and stumble over themselves trying to run away.

He and Karkat frowned at each other.

Pulling on a pair of sweat pants, Dave made his way to the door and peered curiously down the hall, surprised to see that no one was in sight. Then he noticed the note on the ground.

It read: “David. When you and Mr Vantas are quite finished consummating your marriage* (or lack thereof), it would be absolutely delightful if you would consider accompanying myself and a few of your other friends at the location of Terezi’s bedroom. In case you have forgotten about us in your haste to ravish your boyfriend. You know. Us. Your friends. The people who have stuck by your side for years now, always looking out for you, always going out of their way to grant you company when you need it. At any rate, we’re expecting you at 4. Please, for the sake of both your modesty and my darling Kanaya’s virginal eyes^, put some clothes on.

Sincerely, your loving (unbiological) sister and considerate friend,

Rose.

*I am being ironic, of course.

^Kanaya’s eyes are not, in the least sense, virginal. I would gladly assure you that I keep my lady wholly satisfied and that I have entertained many a fantasy of hers that would make your poor Strider innocence curl up into a ball in a cold shower, but I am a lady, and ladies do not fuck and tell.”

Dave continued to stare at the note with a frown on his face even after he’d finished reading, long enough for Karkat to read it over his shoulder, too.

“Jesus Christ,” he heard him say when he was finished. “I hate our friends.”

“Nah, their hearts are in the right place,” Dave remarked with a faint grin, and turned to look at Karkat. “Oh man, this is gonna be great. I  _ravished_ you last night.”

“You didn’t ravish me, it can’t be—”

“Seriously, take a look in a mirror if you get the chance, I’m gonna go take a shower. Wait, actually, on second thoughts…” Before Karkat could say anything, Dave ducked under his bed, sifting through his things as quickly as he could.

“What the fuck are you—”

He managed to get back and snap a picture right before Karkat would have noticed what he was doing and tried to stop him. The troll blinked, surprised, at thin air for a moment, and then all at once realised what had happened and bared his teeth at Dave. “Delete it.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”

“Dave you delete that picture right now I don’t care how funny you think this is you delete that picture if I look as shitty as you say I do I don’t want you—”

“Whoa, hold up, not shitty,” Dave shook his head, taking a step forward to tug at the waistband of Karkat’s pants, smirking. The way that Karkat uncrossed his arms and went slack at the sudden change in proximity was almost comical. “You look hot like this. All marked up for me… damn, Vantas.” Karkat whimpered when he kissed his neck, and Dave was starting to think he had a dirty-talk kink. At any rate…

He pulled away from Karkat with a grin, putting his camera back in its rightful place—under the bed with all of his other crap—and getting up to gather up some clean clothes to wear.

Karkat was still glaring when he disappeared into the bathroom.

 

Later, when they were all sitting around with their friends, after the initial rounds of laughter at the sight of Karkat with his bruised and bitten neck, still-swollen lips and reluctance to sit down too fast, it occurred to Dave that Thanksgiving was coming up, and he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do for it.

“I think I might go and hang out with ED,” said Sollux, looking kind of dreamy and stupid as he smiled at the floor, and everyone in the entire room groaned.

“Don’t mock him,” Kanaya chastised, grabbing Rose’s hand in hers with a small smile, “Rose and I are planning on spending Thanksgiving together as well. It is perfectly understandable why Sollux would want to be with his matesprit.”

“Oh, great,” Terezi huffed, rolling her eyes—a movement that never failed to creep Dave out—and putting her chin in her hand. “Everyone’s gonna be all cute and couple-y, aren’t they? God, you’re all insane. Do you know what I’m gonna do for Thanksgiving? I’m gonna buy an entire box of cherry popsicles. That is what I am going to do.” As she said this, she took a sip of her soda, notably cherry flavoured, as if to emphasise her point. She pointed it in Dave’s direction when she was done. “What are you doing, coolkid? And please tell me it doesn’t involve sucking on your matesprit’s neck.”

“Well, I mean, Bro doesn’t make a big deal out of it, so,” he shrugged, not bothering to mention that John did. “But I mean, if Karkat wants to do something…” He glanced at his boyfriend with a look he hoped wasn’t too hopeful.

Karkat shrugged, but there was no denying the red in his cheeks. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything anyway. At most I guess I was gonna go and pay fucking Pennywise the clown a visit. He’s probably been pissing his pants with the thought of seeing me again.”

“Excellent,” Rose clapped her hands together gently, black lips tugging into a smile; and Dave frowned, knowing that look all too well. “Karkat and Dave will go and stay with Gamzee, Kanaya and I at Kanaya’s home, Sollux with Eridan, and…” she tilted her head, faking surprise, as if she’d suddenly gotten a thought, but Dave knew from the darkness of her eyes that she had been planning whatever it is since she’d brought up Thanksgiving, “Oh, Terezi. Perhaps you’d like to go and see Aradia? I was speaking to her just the other night and it occurred to the both of us that she is currently without Thanksgiving plans, too.” She took a sip of her drink, trying, Dave was sure, not to look conspicuous. “And without any significant other, I hear.”

Luckily for everyone in the room, Dave had long since made Terezi aware of Rose’s caprice for manipulation. She shot a grin in Rose’s direction, wiggling her eyebrows. “Oh, is that so? Smells like a bit of a conspiracy if you ask me.”

“A conspiracy? No, of course not,” Rose insisted in a tone that sounded so sincere Dave almost had second thoughts, and then sipped at her drink again to stifle her small smile. “If anything, it’s a pleasantly convenient coincidence.”

Terezi leaned back and sighed, rubbing absently at the back of her neck. “Thanks, but I think I might stay out of the slightly-set-up dating pool right now. I’m probably just gonna stay here and hang out in my room anyway.” She said it with a small smile, one that, to anyone else, might have looked normal. Dave, however, having spent both years watching his own face in the mirror for signs and tells and being Terezi’s friend recognised that there was something underlying. He decided he’d talk to her about it later.

They dropped the subject of Thanksgiving then and got back onto other, regular things, discussing movies and gossiping about their other friends—something about Tavros and Vriska but Dave wasn’t really listening—and they stayed until Sollux was complaining about being hungry and Rose about being tired and everyone started to disperse.

On their way out, Dave told Karkat he’d meet him back at the room, giving him a reassuring smile and a peck on the lips when he frowned at him, and asked Terezi if he could talk to her.

“What’s up?”

“You okay?”

She glanced at him sideways, frowning a little. “I’m great. How are you?”

“I just,” Dave shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I know we haven’t been hanging out as much lately. With Karkat rooming with me and everything. Not that I’m saying that’s changed anything. I just, uh,” he cleared his throat, really not wanting to be embarrassing and dumb in front of her judging by their history of her teasing him. “You’ve seemed sort of out of it lately. I just wanted to make sure that everything was definitely okay. We’re cool, right?”

“Yeah, Dave, we’re cool,” she said, laughing, and then shrugged, “I’m just not really up to socializing right now. But you never know, I mean, it’s not like Thanksgiving is tomorrow. There’s always Halloween before then, which I am planning on making you dress up for.” They grinned at each other. After a moment, she sighed, crossing her arms casually. “And who knows, I might… I might end up seeing if Aradia wants to come back here and hang out with me, or something. Not that that means I like her or anything, much to Lalonde’s disappointment.” She was grinning, but there was no denying the faint shade of teal to her cheeks. Dave decided he’d do everything in his power to give Terezi the kind of sickly-sweet love life he had going on right now.

And on that note…

“Alright, well. I should get back to Karkat before his brain implodes from lack of Strider TLC, y’know,” he shrugged, but the smile he was trying to keep away kept forcing its way onto his face anyway.

Terezi punched him in the shoulder. “Gog, he’s broken you. He’s turned you into such a  _sap,_ Strider, look at you,” her tone was jeering, but her expression was sincere. She pulled him into a tight hug before he left. “Go on, idiot. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Cool,” Dave nodded, and experimentally, tried to keep a straight face again. And failed. He tried a number of three times on his way back to his room, finding it was a lot harder now that he kept thinking about Karkat’s face when he took the photo of him that morning and Karkat’s lips when he kissed him and Karkat shoving him and calling him an idiot. He grimaced after a while.

Oh God. He really was broken.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as an apology for saying im gonna start updating more and then not updating for 498529752 years, have smut and domestic makaras (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The impression Karkat had gotten from the years’ worth of romantic comedies he’d seen sort of led him to believe that everything would suddenly be perfect; his depression would go away, Dave would stop being a sarcastic asshole, and their lives would transform into a mushy, Disney-esque epitome of the ideal. In all actuality, things didn’t fall into place nearly fast enough, and for the weeks following, they kind of just tried as hard as they could not to accidentally die. It was hard, because their method of solving any kind of conflict was sex, and that usually left them tired by the next morning. (So instead of going to class they had more sex.) This then resulted in them not being able to have sex at all for days at a time, and then Karkat would be on edge all throughout his classes and not be able to focus anyway.

After a while of not being able to adapt (Karkat hated change, and Dave had grown up virtually as an only child) they realised they had to work something out, because as fun as it was, they couldn’t keep skipping classes to have sex.

Karkat slammed the sheet onto the table in front of Dave. He barely glanced up from his apple juice; the only way Karkat had of knowing he’d been acknowledged was the quirk of a single eyebrow.

Karkat gestured to the piece of paper in front of him.

Dave’s head tilted down to look at it, and gradually, his brows pulled together. He looked back up after a minute. “What’s this?”

“A schedule,” Karkat said coolly, gesturing to it again, “because this is getting ridiculous.”

“What’s getting ridiculous?”

“You know what I mean, asshole.”

“That’s a pretty big assumption, Karkitty.”

“Fuck you.”

“Alright.”

So again, rather than talking about their problems, they had sex.

It wasn’t until afterwards, when they lay in bed (hungry; because again, the time spent tangled in the sheets had replaced the time when everyone else was buying dinner) that Karkat actually got the chance to show him the schedule he’d written up.

 “8 am,” Dave read, looking amused and totally blissed out on his back, collar bones all exposed and bitten and bruised. “Wake up to alarm. Whoa, why have you written ‘Dave doesn’t get to pick the music’?”

“Because you literally set it to Cha Cha Real Smooth every time,” he scoffed, kissing absently at his matesprit’s neck.

“Nuh-uh,” Dave defended; his voice was weak and scratchy, post-sex. “I set it to Heat of the Moment every Tuesday, man, give me some credit.”

Karkat rolled his eyes, and nipped particularly hard at Dave’s pulse. The blonde gasped gently, but went on reading; Karkat had to give him credit for that, for not just dropping it for the better sake of making out again.

“8:05 am, shower,” Dave read, then sighed. “This is stupid. What if I want to shower at 8:06. Can’t a guy get some free will around here, yo?”

Karkat’s expression flattened. “If you miss your designated shower time, then bad luck. See, look—I’ve divided up the week. You get morning showers on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I get them on the rest of the days.”

Dave waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “We could always shower together, y’know.”

Karkat didn’t even smile. “No.”

“Aw, come on, why not?”

“Because you know for a fact that we’re not gonna end up showering if that happens.”

“Mm, wouldn’t mind some ‘not showering’ right now,” Dave mumbled, nuzzling his lips into Karkat’s neck. Karkat sighed, but titled his head back as innocently as possible to give him more room to work with. He could feel Dave’s dick pressing suggestively into his thigh. “We literally just had sex, how are you hard again already.”

“’Cause you’re sexy,” the blonde answered teasingly, nipping some skin between his teeth. Karkat hissed, his hand flying to the back of Dave’s head, but he made no move to push the blonde away, eyes slipping shut.

“ _Dave,_ ” he whined after a moment. “Stop, we need to talk about this. I can’t keep missing classes.”

“So don’t,” he hummed happily against Karkat’s throat, the sound vibrating.

“It’s kind of hard to go to class when I have a rather persuading pair of lips on my junk,” Karkat mumbled, and finally mustered up the strength to push his boyfriend’s head away.

Dave sighed, but backed off nonetheless, giving Karkat a small, reassuring smile that meant he had all of his undivided attention.

And then they sat, still naked on their bed, and mapped out an entire schedule together. When it was done, Karkat felt ridiculously cheesy for smiling, something like intense love snapping forth and taking its place in the contours of his chest; Dave was fighting a smile of his own, too, but no amount of cool could hide the stupidly endearing look in his eyes.

It didn’t go off with a bang straight away. The next morning, at 8 am when Heat of the Moment woke them up, they tried, and failed, not to miss a few minutes of the schedule, groggy yawns and apologies passed around as they fumbled in the early hours of the morning to work around each other in the kitchen for respective coffees and breakfast foods, and then for clothes and time in the bathroom. It wouldn’t have been such a long process if they had both just been normal, teenage boys who gave very few shits about their appearances, but both were incredibly conscious of them, for respective reasons, probably, and neither were morning people, so the process dragged on like every morning did. Only now, Karkat noted on his way to class, with a smile, at least they were actually getting ready instead of just having sex.

Which meant they were going to get better.

It took the better part of two weeks, but eventually, they fell into the rhythm of things. Class became less stressful, because mornings became easier, both courteous of the other. They were helpful and loving in their own ways, Dave making mumbled, snide comments as he learnt to dance around Karkat in the kitchenette, Karkat calling him names and getting on his tip toes to kiss him gently before they left. It was normal, and it was nice, especially considering they could easily find free time at least a couple of nights a week to mess around, even with all the sudden demand for study.

It was nice, and Karkat kind of wished high school had been this pleasant.

Of course, there was still the rather pressing problem of his depression; it wasn't as severe as it had been in high school, less chemical and more situational, but there were still days when he'd find himself so stressed out that the thought of just driving five minutes to a store to buy one of those little plastic pencil sharpeners that came with the handy razor blades was more than tempting. Dave was there with him through it, stroking his hair when he could tell he was upset and trying his best to coax him into telling him what was up. (Usually with orgasms, but the asshole had this weird way with words that sometimes tricked Karkat into crying and telling him everything before he could even think better of it.)

All in all, they worked well, and differences put aside, it was almost as if they'd been designed to live together all along.

Right up until the moment they noticed the one flaw in their Thanksgiving plans.

“Dude, doesn’t your mwah-rail clown guy, like, hate me?”

Karkat looked up from his laptop screen. They were sitting on their bed, having previous taken to celebrating pre-Thanksgiving with pizza and mutual handjobs.

“He doesn’t…” he paused, reconsidering. “Alright, yeah, kind of. Shit.”

Dave sighed, audible, and stretched his limbs. They were sitting on the couch together, having previously been making idle comments about their trip tomorrow; they were leaving in the morning, it was too late to cancel now.

Dave poked absently at his boyfriend’s cheek. “What did you even tell him, anyway? Were you seriously just planning on showing up with me, like, hey, surprise, we’re dating!”

“That’d be a surprise,” Karkat agreed, laughing kind of bitterly as he closed his laptop and turned to stretch into Dave, too. “Happy thanksgiving, I brought with me the asshole you’ve been talking about murdering for the past seven years of your life. Also we’re fucking.”

“Making  _love,_ ” Dave corrected, taking Karkat’s hand in his. Karkat swatted him over the head.

He buried his head in Dave’s chest, then, cheeks flushing. His voice was muffled. “Maybe we just shouldn’t go.”

“Shit, man, nah, we have to go now. We’ve got, like, dignity to uphold and shit. Besides, he’d refrain from killing me if you asked nicely, wouldn’t he?”

Karkat buried his face even further in Dave’s chest. “That’s not the problem,” he grumbled.

“Then what is?”

“I’m kind of scared he’ll…” he peaked out to look at Dave, trying to give him a suggestive look. “You know.”

“What, like, moirail hit on you? Aren’t you guys meant to be totally platonic and—”

“ _Gross,_ oh my God. No, fuckass, my concern does not lie with my shitty excuse for a best friend trying to pull the moves on me. That is disgusting, by the way. I’m just kind of worried that he’ll. Uh. You know how kismesisitude works, right?”

Dave wrinkled his nose. “ _Eeeew,_ ” he drawled, pulling a face, “gross, no, what. Holy shit tell me you’re kidding.”

Karkat shrugged, only causing Dave’s groan to draw on louder. “Holy  _shit_. Messed up, dude, fuck.”

“Will you shut up?” His face was kind of starting to turn red. “It’s just… quadrants are complicated, alright. He was kind of black for you back in high school, but I always told him to lay off because I—” Karkat shut up. His face was definitely red now.

Dave suddenly looked less disgusted and considerably more excited, cupping his cheeks and tilting his head at his boyfriend. “You what?”

“Nothing,” Karkat grumbled, wondering why he even had to feel embarrassed now; they told each other everything, and yet the thought of letting Dave in on how he’d really had feelings for him  _the whole time he’d been bitching around_ made his stomach clench.

“Nooo, you have to tell me now,” Dave chided, slapping his arm playfully. His shades were on the coffee table in front of the TV; gradually, he was becoming more open in having them off in front of Karkat.

Taking a harsh breath, Karkat tried to talk as quickly as possible, “Ikindofhadamassivecrushonyouokay.”

Dave leant back, grinning. “Knew it.”

“You did not!”

“I totally did. I totally called it.” He gasped suddenly, and pointed an accusing finger Karkat’s way. “So  _that’s_ why you took advanced media even though you sucked.”

“I didn’t suck! Shut the fuck up, you smug bastard, not everything regarding what I did in high school had to do with—mph.”

Dave’s favourite activity was slowly becoming shutting him up with kisses.

Karkat put forward no immediate complaints save for a very unenthused groan before he shut his eyes and kissed back, barely having enough time to shift so that he could get into Dave’s lap before the blonde pulled away.

“Tell me. About what it was like in high school, I mean.”

Karkat wanted to hit him and tell him he was being dumb, but the stupid look on his face—the stupid smile, eyes all crinkled very slightly at the corners—was so genuine and honest and open. Karkat sighed, and moved into Dave’s lap if only to be held, ending up just laying down and kicking his legs over the side of the couch so that his head was in his matesprit’s lap. Dave played with his hair, very purposely avoiding his horns so that he could speak.

“I liked you ages before I tried to kill myself, but back then I used to try and deny it all the time. Like, Gamzee knew, and Terezi knew, and Sollux used to tease me about it but I was just in all this _denial._  Because you were a douche,” the threw in the last part with a grin, but Dave snorted nonetheless, waiting for him to go on. “I don’t know if you remember that time that I was over at your place, but… I was high. Or, I had been, and I left my shoes at Gamzee’s and wandered around by myself for the whole day and then got hungry and sober and looked homeless and you found me in the rain and—”

“’Course I remember,” Dave insisted, grinning down at him. “First time this cutie stepped foot in Case de Strider, shit was monumental.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well. That’s when I realised that I probably liked you, a little, because the clothes you gave me smelled like you and it was really fucking nice and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I didn’t really  _admit_ it until that day on the pier when we kissed, and after that I just… ugh.”

“Classic high school pining?” Dave offered.

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Dave waggled his eyebrows. “Ever try to get into my pants?”

Karkat slapped him on the thigh. Dave laughed, hitting back playfully and ending up threading their fingers together, dropping their hands together and smiling. “’Cause, like, I’m not gonna judge you if you did. Used to want to get  _you_ all pregnant on the mouth.”

“Shut uuuuup, oh my fucking God.”

“Seriously, though. Did you ever… think about me? Like that?”

Karkat said nothing, but apparently, the colour of his cheeks was answer enough.

Dave continued to smile, until it became too much for Karkat and he got up to kiss him, squeezing his eyes shut and muttering into the kiss. “Shut the fuck up, you smug bastard. It’s not like I was the only one, right?”

Dave’s eyes darkened at that; Karkat’s stomach flipped. “You’re right,” he said, voice taking on that slightly Southern drawl he got when he was turned on. “You weren’t.”

He kissed him, at that, leaning forward until he was straddling the blonde’s lap and threading his arms around to drape over his shoulders lazily. Tongues connected, Karkat sighed happily into the kiss; and then Dave grabbed his ass and the troll squeaked, pulling away from the kiss to hide his embarrassment in Dave’s neck.

The mood had very quickly shifted, Dave’s moves obviously far more practised and with purpose now. He kneaded at the back of Karkat’s thigh with one hand, the other going up to his hair to run over his scalp, teasingly close to one of his horns, and spoke lowly in Karkat’s ear. “Do you want to hear about it? What it was like?”

Karkat nodded, blood coursing straight to his cheeks, suddenly very thankful to be able to hide his face. He could feel his bulge unsheathing.

 “I used to watch you,” Dave said, smirk evident against Karkat’s skin. “Shit, it was so fucked up of me. I used to stare at you all the time, think about what it’d be like to kiss you. And then I’d think about, well…” he took the lobe of the troll’s ear into his mouth, earning a sharp gasp. “Mm. Stuff like that. Hearing your voice get all high and breathy for me. It’d be late, and I’d be in bed. I had this picture of you—” Dave’s finger found one of his horns and Karkat cut him off with a whimper, grinding his hips down into Dave’s. The blonde gasped, hands catching on his boyfriend’s hips and holding him there, trembling slightly with the effort not to buck up. “Hush, baby, I’m telling a story.”

Karkat just whimpered again, trying to press his head into the teasing, barely there brushes of skin to his horns.

“Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. I had this picture of you. Fuck, you looked great in it. It was senior year, and we’d all gone to the beach that summer—that summer after we first kissed, you remember? You weren’t talking to me back then, but sometimes our friends would invite us both places and I’d see you.”

The pad of his thumb was rubbing very gently against the base of Karkat’s left horn, only enough to stimulate the nerves into waking up and wanting more. Karkat breathed almost harshly against Dave’s neck, trying to grind down again, but unable to because of the vice grip on his hips. That sent something hot shooting straight to his lower stomach, the thought that Dave had him trapped like this, that he was in control, that Karkat had no way out but to submit; he tried to stifle a whimper into biting down on his matesprit’s neck and sucking.

Dave’s voice was clearly bordering on shaky, but he kept his cool, continuing on with the story spoken so casually that Karkat might have mistook it just for regular conversation, save for the low, hot tone Dave was using.

”You were getting a little better then, weren’t you? For a while? After that day you tried to hurt yourself less, started going to a gym instead of just starving yourself. You must not have been self harming for a while because I couldn’t even see the scars on your wrists that day, but—fuck, you looked great. Your stomach had this tiny little hint of toning, barely there unless you flexed, and it was still skinny as fuck but you were starting to fill out again,” Dave took a deep breath, very deliberately fingering one of Karkat’s horns. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

Karkat rutted down against him, puffing desperate noises into Dave’s neck, wanting more, needing to be touched suddenly.

But Dave went on, relentless. “You were wearing these grey shorts, these tiny little shorts which were almost too small for you and when you bent over—ffffuck,” he drew out the noise, and then brought his other hand up to rub circles into both of the horns in time with each other, acting like he couldn’t even hear the near-sobs being pressed into the skin at his neck. “So hot.”

“I w-wore them for you,” Karkat tried to get out, voice muffled, and refused to look at Dave, cheeks on fire.

“Huh?”

“The shorts,” he said again, quietly. “I wore the shorts because I thought you might be looking.”

Dave was quiet for a long moment, while Karkat tried to grind down on him again, succeeding in only the briefest bits of friction; but apparently it was enough to completely startle Dave out of his daydream, and suddenly, like a switch had been flipped, he threw his boyfriend down on the bed, meeting his lips in a breathless, open-mouthed kiss.

Karkat clung to his back like a life-line, crotch feeling like it was on fire despite only having gotten off close to half an hour ago, and kissed back as best he could, eyes squeezed shut and whimpering every now and again.

Dave pulled away, out of air, and spoke breathily against Karkat’s skin as he kissed down his body. “You get off on it, right?”

Karkat threw a hand over his eyes, revelling in the teasing sensation of Dave kissing and nipping at his hips, hands running over his thighs, long fingers tracing the marks there. “Get off on what, you jackass.”

Dave stopped, suddenly, and it took Karkat a minute to realise he was waiting to be looked at. Dave was smiling, hovered right above Karkat’s bulge. “Being talked to.”

Then he swallowed the whole thing in one go.

Karkat threw his head back and practically screamed, cupping a hand over his mouth so not to be heard by the whole building. Whimpers came out muffled and somehow more desperate into the back of his hand as he watched Dave’s head bob up and down like it was no big deal, though he had to be choking somewhat on the squirming bulge; he lifted up to the tip, sucked harshly, went back down and flattened his tongue. Karkat flat out  _writhed,_ tangling his fingers in Dave’s hair and pulling, swears like a mantra. Dave pulled away way too quickly for Karkat to even be close to coming, lips stained red, grinning. He started to play a finger over Karkat’s entrance, far too smug.

“Fuck, I love doing that. You love me doing that too, right?”

Karkat didn’t even get the chance to answer, the only thing he was capable of suddenly being moaning as Dave’s finger entered him. He threw his head back onto the pillow, tried to bunch at the sheets in his hand. Dave hummed, amused. “Yeah, no mistaking it. You’re so  _wet,_ Karkat, shit. Such a slut.”

Karkat tried to stifle his surprised moan into his hand. He really, really did.

Dave’s smirk widened, and he added a second finger, fucking them gently in and out. “Bingo,” he said, chuckling. “Found one of Krabbycat’s kinks. Tell me, Kit Kat, do you get off on being  _called_ a slut, or on the actual act of sluttiness itself?”

Karkat couldn’t even find the will in himself to answer, hips lifting off of the bed to chase Dave’s hands when they retreated, welcoming them back in when he added a third.

“Because it looks to me like you like it when I call you things. Into dirty talk, eh? Figures. Lay back and be still for me.”

Karkat obeyed, possibly too fast, legs trembling with the effort to stay still. Dave’s movements were practically erratic when he pulled away and wiped his hand off on the bedsheets—gross—his whole body shaking with excitement. They really didn’t get to try new things very often. The only time they’d ever really done anything new in the bedroom had been that one time Dave let slip that he wouldn’t mind trying to be on the receiving end of sex for once, but that had ended with a lot of arguing and Karkat getting the worst case of blue balls ever.

So they never really did… this.

Dave lined up with his nook, breathing harshly into Karkat’s hair, and Karkat barley had the state of mind left to remember to spread his thighs and wrap them around his matesprit before he pushed in, hissing and clawing at the white back presented to him. (Probably drawing blood.)

"Fuck," Dave swore- Karkat may have been the most prone to swearing most of the time, but when it came to sex, Dave took the cake. "Fuck, fuck, shit, okay. Oh God. Oh, God,  _Karkat._ That feels so fucking good, baby, you have no idea, just- oh fuck, yeah, move a bit for me."

Karkat allowed himself to be laid back and stretched, Dave practically bending his body in half, knees to his chest, and met his lips in a messy kiss.

He started to move, pulling out and slamming back in, grunting softly under his breath as he did so. Karkat wrenched their mouths away, attempting to bury his in Dave's neck as he rode through the little line between pleasure and pain that he wished he didn't enjoy as much as he did, moaning and whimpering like-

"-a slut, such a slut, listen to you," Dave breathed, hard, right under Karkat's ear, and the troll whimpered, bucking his hips to meet the next of Dave's thruts. Dave choked on a moan of his own, retaliating by grabbing onto both of Karkat's horns, lighting the nerves there on fire.

"Sh-shit, Dave," he gasped, still recovering from the words; and that's all they were, words, words that were lighting his body on fire and sending him towards the edge way too quickly-

"So needy," Dave chastised, gripping Karkat's hips almost bruisingly. "Mm, fuck. Good boy, so good for me,  _fuck_ Kar."

It wasn't long before Karkat was sobbing on every moan, clinging to Dave like he was drowning; and fuck, the  _words,_ the names and the accusations.

How was he expected to last?

Afterwards, when Karkat had come screaming and Dave had come muttering acidic words into his mateprit's neck, they lay wrapped up together above the covers and caught their breaths, Dave asking if it had been alright over and over, that Karkat really was into it and didn't think anything of the words. He'd never really understood the meaning or the purpose of aftercare, but he liked it.

They boarded the plane at 8 rhe next morning, still groggy and tired from one of their more particularly sleepless nights. A quick text was sent Gamzee’s way to let them know that they—or rather, Karkat, as far as he was concerned—were on their way.

The flight barely lasted the better half of a few hours, which Dave slept through. Don’t get Karkat wrong, he loved the thought of his boyfriend letting his guard down enough to sleep on his shoulder in public, but there was a very fine line between sleeping and snoring with your mouth open.

They got there just before lunchtime, taking a cab down to the back end of town where Gamzee currently resided.

It was quiet for the first five minutes.

“Okay, so. We have to tell him.”

“Hm?” Dave looked up from the window he’d been staring out of.

“Gamzee. We have to tell him we’re dating, right?”

Dave turned back to the window, seemingly impassive save for the twitch Karkat could see in his jaw. “Nah, we don’t have to tell him anything. If you wanna keep it a secret I’m totally fine with that.”

Karkat rolled his eyes, leaning forward to nudge his boyfriend. “Don’t be an asshole. I just… I  _want_ to tell him, okay? I really do. I just don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”

Dave hummed a little in confirmation, but there was no mistaking the very obvious grin he now sported. Dork. Karkat moved forward to kiss his cheek.

The cab pulled up outside the shabby little corner house surrounded by flowers, and Karkat paid the cabbie and got out. About a year ago, Gamzee and Kurloz had started planting them together. Karkat remember specifically once being mad at his moirail for ignoring him for his new matesprit, and they’d both picked and arranged a crappy bouquet of roses in apology. He’d cried.

Karkat knocked on the door, leg bouncing nervously in one place as he heard shuffling around inside. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Dave start to put his hand on his back, and then retreat back into his pocket.

Gamzee’s matesprit was the one to open the door.

Karkat never knew what to expect from Kurloz. He was a genuinely nice, cheery person a lot of the time, who spoke softly and always smiled. This did not, however, mean he was innocent, and Karkat had first learnt that a while back when he’d thought that Kurloz would be unable to take care of Gamzee. Gamzee had been sober one night, and had started yelling at Kurloz, but he’d barely gotten to throw one punch before Kurloz had him overwhelmed and pinned to the floor, whispering quiet things in his ear. Karkat didn’t think he’d ever heard quite so rough sex as he did that night.

They flipped quadrants more often than not depending on the amount of sopor in Gamzee, but they were happy.

Kurloz welcomed them in with that creepy smile of his and called for Gamzee, disappearing into the back of the house when he didn’t come right away. Karkat could see Dave looking around, and kind of wished he’d warned Gamzee to clean the place up a little first.

As if the thought of his name had summoned him the room, said indigo-blood popped his head through the doorway to the kitchen with a delightfully inebriated grin. “Karbro, you fuckin little miracle, you shoulda—” his words cut off as he caught sight of Dave, and then two purple eyes purposefully narrowed. “Mind if I… have a brief speakin to with you, brother?”

Karkat hung his head in shame and followed Gamzee into the kitchen, belatedly shooting his boyfriend an apologetic look.

“Please tell me what that motherfucker is doing in our home.” Karkat studied his moirail’s expression, eyebrows pulled together with concern. He certainly didn’t look happy, clear annoyance showing through his features, but there was nothing sober there that struck Karkat as particularly violent or murderous. He tried not to let his sigh become too audible. “Chill, he’s my friend,” he said reassuringly, offering Gamzee a smile. “He’s not a total asshole once you get to know him, okay?”

Gamzee didn’t look convinced, narrowed eyes still, and cast a glance in Dave’s general direction, though neither could see him from where they stood. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he said, even though Dave was still kind of an asshole.

Gamzee looked like he was processing the information. “I still don’t trust him. Shit, I hate that little fucker. You could’ve all up and warned me we were going to be letting that asshole into our house.” Karkat looked uncomfortable, and Gamzee seemed to reconsider a moment, “Wait, you’re not motherfuckin  _flushed_ for him again are y—” Karkat danced away before he could finish, laughing loudly and announcing that they should all have lunch.

“Almost ready, my wicked-eager little friend,” Kurloz said, patting Karkat on the head. “Why don’t y’all just go and sit yourselves merry in our humble abode’s room of livin’, and we’ll start the festivities right when it’s feelin’ good in our motherfuckin hearts.”

Gamzee made a sound of agreement, walking past to give his matesprit a chaste kiss. Only ‘chaste’, to them, meant a particularly open mouthed kiss and a fairly passionate tug on Kurloz’s hair. Gamzee winked as he pulled away. Dave looked borderline horrified.

Karkat took him up to show him his old room, which currently only housed his recuperacoon and an empty desk with a TV on it. They sat on the floor together and waited for lunch.  
“First of all, I am so fucking sorry for them, oh my God,” Karkat blurted out, covering his head with his hands.

He saw Dave shrug. “Nah, it’s cool. They’re kinda cute in their own fucked up way.”

“ _They’re so fucking weiiiird.”_ His voice came out muffled.

Dave chuckled gently, patting Karkat’s back. “You haven’t seen Bro and John together yet. Seriously, though. It’s kind of endearing.”

“Endearingly  _horrifying,_ ” Karkat said, sitting up.

“Well, that, too. Where’s your bathroom?”

Karkat gave him the directions and turned his focus on his old room while his matesprit was gone, counting the old scratches on the wood floors. He’d spent close to a year living here with Gamzee, working two jobs to help him pay the rent, cooking dinner for the idiot when he was too high to do so. Then, of course, he’d met Kurloz and things had changed—the guy who’d at first just seemed to kind of hero-worship his best friend had quickly become much more in both of their lives, and soon enough, it had felt like Karkat wasn’t needed anymore. Kurloz hadn’t pushed him away, however, and had actually been very tentative about welcoming himself into their little family; he’d assured Karkat time and time again that he was not going to replace him, that Gamzee still  _needed_ him around to subdue him, and that just because Kurloz was also capable did not make him more suitable a moirail for the violent-prone Capricorn. Karkat had later learnt to accept this, because it was true: Gamzee had never once even suggested that Karkat wasn’t good enough for him anymore.

After a while of sitting and thinking, Karkat realised Dave had been gone for a while, and decided to go make sure he’d found the bathroom alright.

What he didn’t expect was the scene almost right outside his bedroom.

“Uh…”

“Dave, all I’m motherfuckin sayin is—”

Gamzee stopped talking and turned to cast Karkat a glance backwards. Karkat tried to make sense of the scene. Dave pressed up against the wall, looking confused and mildly terrified, Gamzee leaning over him with his fist pressed to the wall.

“What’s going on?” Karkat asked, suddenly suspicious that his moirail had attempted to threaten Dave into staying away from him—or something worse.

“Nothing is—”

“Your clown friend was hitting on me,” Dave blurted quickly. His cheeks were red.

One look between the annoyance on Gamzee’s face and the humiliation on Dave confirmed it.

Gamzee had been black hitting on his matesprit.


	20. Chapter 20

“Dave and I were just having ourselves an all kinds’a friendly chat, brother, just go back into your room for a quick motherfuckin second.”

Karkat suddenly realised the severity of the situation; Gamzee was hate-hitting on Dave, Dave was playing the scared and oblivious role because he was  _genuinely scared and oblivious,_ and Gamzee thought he was just flirting back. If he left, there would probably be no stopping something relatively kismessisy going down between his best friend and his boyfriend.

“I, uh,” he tried. Dave looked annoyed suddenly. “Um, Gamzee, you can’t. Uh. You can’t hit on Dave, because, uh.”

“Just you mind your own business, motherfucker, Strider and I were just—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Dave snapped. “Karkat will you  _please_ just tell him, he was literally only a few seconds from putting his hand on my junk.”

Gamzee turned to Karkat, still pissed, and quirked an eyebrow.

Karkat took a deep breath. “DaveandIaredating.”

The clown’s expression fell. “What.”

“We’re, ah,” Karkat scratched at the back of his neck, laughing nervously. “Matesprits, now. Um. Yeah.”

Gamzee looked between the two of them, still narrowed eyes, like he was processing the information. “…Together?”

“Yes.”

“The two of you?”

“Yes, that’s, uh. Yeah.”

“…And you want me to back off.”

“Yes, please,” Karkat breathed a sigh of relief, glad he’d gotten the message through.

Gamzee looked uncertain. He glared between Dave and Karkat, then Dave, then Karkat again. And then, as if a switch had been flipped, he grinned. “That’s motherfuckin  _great._ I’m so happy for you, shit, c’mere bro.” Karkat squeaked uncertainly as he was pulled into Gamzee’s arms, awkwardly hugging back. Gamzee let go of him to direct his grin at Dave, and suddenly, got right in his face. “And you!” he said, voice too cheery to be genuine suddenly, “I’m happy for you too, brother, but I wanna let you in on one thing.” His voice dropped a few pitches in volume, but remained that terrifying, cheery tone. “If you ever even think about hurtin my motherfuckin best friend, I will make potions out of your motherfucking blood.”

Then he danced away to the kitchen, still smiling.

Dave slid down the wall and landed on his ass. “Holy shiiiit,” he groaned into his lap, voice muffled. Karkat took a seat next to him and pat his back awkwardly. “Holy shit,” Dave said again, giving Karkat a pained look. “He almost  _courted_ me.”

Karkat slapped him on the back.

Lunch turned out to be a KFC feast on their dingy dining room table (they had to use a chair for another room for Dave to sit on) with Faygo in paper cups. It was nice all the same, and they quickly managed to fall into the easy, friendly swing of things, making jokes and telling stories and catching up. Karkat told them about Sollux and Eridan; Gamzee didn’t even sound slightly surprised, spouting off some bullshit about destiny and how it was always meant to be or something. It wasn’t until later, when lunch had long since been eaten and they were all just sitting around getting high, that Gamzee decided to tell Karkat he supported him fully and was glad Dave was making him happy. Karkat had to excuse himself to go to his room so that he didn’t cry in front of everyone.

Dave found him there, some five minutes later, wiping tears from his eyes and sniffling aggressively, claiming that he wasn’t even crying and that Dave was an asshole for thinking so. Dave just smiled and kissed him, and then they found themselves in the middle of a particularly heated make out session propped up against the side of Karkat’s recuperacoon. He pulled away when Dave’s hands started to wander southwards. “They’ll hear,” he said.

“So we’ll be quiet,” Dave shot back, smirking against his chin.

"Mm... Dave, quit it," Karkat swatted at his head, attempting to push the persistent pair of lips away from his skin. Dave retaliated by nipping at the skin of Karkat's neck, too harshly. "Fuck," Karkat gasped, then sighed, threading his fingers through his matesprit's hair, staring at him with something like wonder. "Fuck, Dave. What's gotten into you?"

Dave's only answer was to suck at his neck harder, grunting when Karkat sighed and tried to pry him off again.

Karkat fell back against the side of his recuperacoon, begrudgingly allowing Dave's hands to pin his own by his sides, as the blonde came to straddle his lap; no, not allowing, exactly, Dave was in full control here- and oh shit, when had his bulge started to unsheath? _  
_

"Dave, s-seriously," he ground out, trying to ignore the fact that he was shaking. "Stop."

Dave's hands stopped, having been roaming around the general area of Karkat's hips, but the troll could feel him smirking against his neck still. "If you really wanted me to stop, you'd say so."

Karkat's face turned red; of course, he had not forgotten the conversation they'd had last night, having laid together and had an actual conversation about potential kinks for once. After a brief argument (Dave had reservations, still, about whether he could trust that Karkat entirely enjoyed it; whether Karkat definitely wanted the rough treatment, the harsh words) they had decided on a safe word for if one of them really couldn't handle it anymore.

Dave's smirk intensified against his neck. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Karkat moaned gently, helpless, as Dave slid a hand past the waistband of his pants.

"It's the sopor," he said, voice muffled against Karkat's neck.

Karkat couldn't be certain he'd heard him, if not for the sole fact that it was kind of hard to hear past the pounding in his ears when his boyfriend's fingers were working away so indignantly at his bulge. "H-huh?"

"Clown-bro and his bf were taking shots of sopor," Dave said, like he was making light conversation about the weather (though his voice was pretty hitched and his tone was taking on that scratchy lilt it got when he was turned on), "and they offered me some. Thought it might be fun. Y'know what that shit does to humans, karkitty?"

"U-uuh," he made a thoughtful noise, but it was interrupted when Dave craned his wrist to get a finger into Karkat. "C-calms them down? Gets them high? I don't-"

" _This,_ " Dave said, practically hissing the word, and lifted his hips to grind against Karkat. It wasn't much in the way of friction, but it caused his finger to slip in further, pressing against a sensitive spot inside of him. That, paired with the sudden realisation behind what Dave was insinuating, was enough to make Karkat choke on a moan loud enough to wake half the neighbourhood.

"O-oh, shit," Karkat warbled, because suddenly he was met with the wracking images of the last time Dave had ingested sopor. So that probably hadn't been a dream, then, hearing the blonde's elevated breaths and seeing him get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Karkat wasn't stupid. He could put two and two together.

"Is it really that strong?"

Dave shrugged against him, slipping another finger in- Karkat cried out. "I dunno. Probably. Maybe it's just you, though. Last time- oh man, I don't know if you remember, but- you gave me some, and it took about an hour to set in. It wasn't even that much, but... well, damn, it was enough that I woke up about two inches away from pressing my boner right against your poor virgin ass." Dave smirked against him, bent his neck to dip a kiss to Karkat's adam's apple. "'Course you'd probably have enjoyed that, right? Slut."

"Shit," Karkat said again. Shaking a bit. Or a lot. Dave pulled away to help him out of his pants.

When they were both naked enough that having anyone walk in would no longer be able to be passed off with the excuse 'shit how did his hand get in my pants whoops total accident haha', Dave knocked him flat on his back, not even giving Karkat the chance to straddle his lap or initiate any other position.

"Look at you, totally sluttin' it up for me. Look how into this you are, shit, karbaby. Cheeks all flushed and everything. Practically gagging for it."

Karkat's head swam; this was still new to him, the concept of opening up to someone enough that the two might be able to indulge in a mutual kink. It seemed even more so the case now, with Dave's eyes all clouded over with the effects the sopor was taking on him.

He brought two fingers to Karkat's mouth in offering. It only took the troll a second for his tongue to dart out and guide the digits in. He sucked on them in ernest, trying to keep eye contact with his matesprit even though his lids kept lowering and threatening to turn his eyes to slits. Dave's own lowered at the sight, pupils blown wide. He couldn't have kept eyecontact when he dipped his head down to bite at Karkat's shoulder, but when he came back up, it was almost like he hadn't moved at all. The thin ring of cerise that was left matched the blood forming around the teeth marks on Karkat's neck.

Dave whispered for him to be quiet when he fucked him. Karkat tried; he made genuine efforts to muffle his swears into Dave's skin, bit down on his fist around moans, turned his head into the floor when he came with a scream.

Dave came hard enough to render him boneless for a good five minutes, and even though he was still shaking from the way Dave's words had hollowed him out, Karkat got up to clean up for him; it was worth it to see the life come back into Dave's eyes, sleepy red irises lighting up when he ceased his practically comatose state and realised he'd just been lying there. He got up to help Karkat back into his clothes, and Karkat lovingly sunk into the aftercare, nuzzling into the blonde and allowing himself to be guided into lying down.

Dave was always really self-conscious afterwards; or had been, lately, since they'd descended into the kinkier side of things, and continuously asked if it had been alright, if Karkat had really enjoyed it, if he hadn't taken it too far.

"It's fine, Dave," he insisted around a yawn, breaths like purs when he nuzzled closer. Dave pressed feather light kisses to his temple, needy and self conscious. "It was perfect."

"Sure?" he asked quietly, eyelashes fluttering against's Karkat's cheek; barely there, but butterfly kisses. Karkat shut his eyes and smiled.

"Mhm. I'm sure. You'd hear about it if it wasn't."

Dave was quiet for a while. Karkat promised himself he wasn't falling asleep, because it wasn't even that late, it wasn't-

He was just resting his eyes. His recuperacoon was right there, and his back would hurt it he fell asleep on the floor like this.

The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was Dave telling him he loved him.

The next morning, Gamzee grinned at them from across the breakfast table, waggling his eyebrows suggestively when Karkat glowered into his cereal bowl. Words weren't needed to tell him that they had heard everything; just the way Kurloz had snickered upon seeing them emerge from Karkat's bedroom at 9 in the morning was enough. Gamzee had found out next, as he'd gotten up twenty minutes later and firstly committed to what was apparently routine; stumbling into the kitchen, hitting a wall and laughing out loud at himself, fumbling for the orange juice and chugging it straight out of the carton, kissing his matesprit on the cheek when he helped him with breakfast and muttering something about what a miracle he was. Then he sat down, took one look at Karkat, and woke right the fuck up.

Though Kurloz had been more polite about the situation, Gamzee held no such reservations against giving Dave and Karkat shit; his first comment had been about how the marks on Karkat's neck had better have been Karkat's idea or else Dave was going to find his intestines strung in a very creative place.

Breakfast was only an awkward ordeal for Karkat, as Dave didn't even seem slightly bothered by the turn of events; in fact, at one point, when Gamzee commented on how Karkat sort of sounded like a kitten in bed, he swore he saw Dave smirk.

When they got home, it was late afternoon, the sky bleeding the last of the red-yellow leaves to make way for the chill that came with Chicago winters, and mostly everyone was just getting back from wherever they’d been over the 3 day break for Thanksgiving. Kanaya pulled up at almost the exact same time they arrived in their taxi, so they followed her back to her room in the interest of hanging out with her and Terezi for the rest of the day.

They just weren’t expecting Aradia to answer the door.

“Oh, hey,” she greeted, pleasantly surprised to see them. She blinked. Karkat blinked. Aradia scratched her neck. “Been a while.”

Some further examination led to the discovery that while Terezi had been planning on staying at school for the break, she had also, without telling anyone, gotten into contact with Aradia, and they’d agreed to hang out together over the few day period.

Then came the news that Aradia was moving to their school. It first came up when Kanaya made a passing comment over the top of her coffee mug that Aradia should visit Terezi more often (then cue a glare from Terezi), before Aradia had grinned one of the broad crimson smiles Karkat had missed so terribly and told them that she was 'actually sorta thinking of moving in'.

"I mean, not to this room, specifically," she said quickly, shooting Kanaya an apologetic grin. "But to this school. I was kind of already considering it, but then Terezi... well, effectively convinced me. I'm in the process of enrolment right now."

"That's so great, Aradia," Dave said, giving her one of his Actually Not Fake smiles.

No one was brave enough to ask how Terezi had convinced her, but Kanaya noted as soon as they were both out of the room that the lack of visible evidence of debauchment on either of them was more than a little disappointing.

"No marks on either of their necks," Dave said, shaking his head sadly, "and we all know Terezi's a biter, so I guess project Arazi isn't in progress yet."

"What, fuck no, Arazi is a stupid ship name," Karkat scowled at him. "Teradia would have sounded much better."

"I agree," Kanaya said, like they were discussing the most important matter she'd ever heard of. "Project Teradia is much more appealing than Project Arazi. Project Teradia is underway, correct?"

"Correct," Dave said, nodding solemnly.

"Correct," Karkat agreed.

Project Teradia was underway.

They excused themselves back to their room, though not before insisting that Terezi cook for them ("God anything but ramen, I'm begging.") When they got back, Dave's first instinct was to retrieve his phone from where he'd forgotten it next to their bed, like he'd known that there would be five missed calls from his brother.

They called him back on speakerphone, told him and John all about their trip even though the connection was fuzzy and Karkat was still actually sort of jetlagged. Bro asked if they were definitely coming up for Christmas, and the look they shared before Dave told him 'yes' was kind of really nice. Left Karkat feeling all warm and affectionate.

Dave had to hang up the phone, eventually, because Karkat was pressing persistent kisses into his neck and complaining about being tired.

Lying in bed afterwards and watching The Wedding Singer on Dave's laptop felt more like coming home than anything, and, legs tangled with Dave's, the holidays to look forward to, Karkat actually couldn't think up any complaints.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [MUFFLED DRAMATIC FOREBODING MUSIC BECAUSE HAPPINESS AND NORMALITY IN ANY OF MY PLOTS IS ALWAYS A DANGER SIGN FOR SEVERE UPCOMING PLOT TWISTS AND STABS STRAIGHT TO YOUR FUCKING HEART]
> 
> i'm really sORRY for not updating for ages I hecked up I hecked up I heckde I hecked, up,/  
> my girlfriend read this whole thing and asked me to update and that is why I got the motivation to do so ahh uwu  
> so hello kimmie!!! if ur reading this ahaha
> 
> N E WAY  
> AN ANNOUNCEMENT  
> I will start updating this again  
> Like regularly I hope  
> Because it's the end of the school year and I don't have any more exams  
> I have a lot of dumb tenth grade assignments but I don't actually care about those because it's a month until Christmas so I should have time on my hands to write more of this fic???? Aw yeah son that's what I'm talking about  
> So yeeeeeah  
> Gomen for lack of updates  
> If you're still reading this fic and still think I'm cool then I think you're cool too  
> Way cool  
> Thank you


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry early christmas!!!

Christmas couldn't come sooner.

This year, Karkat thought, was probably the first in a long time that he was actually excited about the holidays, even though Dave kept telling him not to get his hopes up too high because, "Bro and John have actually gotten weirder. No, like. You don't understand. They're worse together, man. They work in this really twisted way."

Admittedly, it would have been a lot let stressful if their plans didn't keep changing. They changed back and forth about six times in the two weeks leading up to when they were meant to leave:

The first time, it was because John and Bro were fighting and Bro called up to say that he thought they needed to work through their problems, and Dave's presence wouldn't help that.

The second time was Bro calling back the next day to say that they'd had makeup sex and Dave could stay for an extra week now if he wanted to.

The third time was after Karkat got off of Pesterchum with Gamzee, muttering about how the "asshole was making him feel guilty", and now they had to visit him, too.

Then two days after he managed to get out of it.

They were both pretty sick of their plans being tossed around by this point, content to just do exactly as they'd originally planned and fly home to stay with Dave's family: that was the end of it.

Until Terezi showed up at their room, four days before, crying.

"Terezi-"

"Can I come in?" she interrupted, wiping belatedly at her face with her sleeve.

Karkat hurriedly stepped aside to let her into the room, turning just in time to catch Dave shooting up from the bed, concerned.

"Whoa, what-"

"Don't wanna talk about it," she said, sniffling again. She looked around for a moment before giving up and just collapsing on the side of their bed, head in her hands.

It was really, really awkward for the next couple of minutes: Dave and Karkat tried to communicate via hand gestures while Terezi cried miserably into her hands, eventually committing to the slightly awkward task of sitting on either side of her and petting her back while she sobbed. She managed to stop, eventually, and rested her head on Karkat's shoulder while Dave continued to pet her awkwardly.

"Do you feel like talking about it yet?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"Because we're here if-"

"It's not a big deal," she said, shoulders slumping. "I'm just being- just being a baby, don't mind me. I had a, uh. Kind of a fight with my lusus."

Karkat's sympathy instantly peaked. Like him, Terezi was one of the few lucky enough to have been able to bring her lusus when they evacuated Alternia; and, like Karkat, one of the few still in contact with it.

Kankri had been a whole other story, less like a sibling and more like a houseguest to Karkat when he had moved. The whole situation had been kind of strange, but it had gone like this:

They'd evacuated the planet and moved into human housing. Some of the younger ones (i.e Karkat, i.e Terezi) had been lucky enough to bring their lusi, and they were moved into zoo-like facilities in the houses-- a little inhumane, sure, but necessary for both their protection and the protection of everyone else involved. Some of the younger trolls had been paired up with older ones for the sake of saving space, too.

Both Karkat and Terezi ended up with pseudo-siblings and lusi both.

That was how they'd met.

"What happened?"

"She just- it's nothing. It's just a silly fight between her, Latula and I. I'm just upset because now it looks like I'll have nowhere to go for the break. Again."

The way that Karkat and Dave exchanged such a knowing look would have been hilarious if they had not both been currently busy worrying over Terezi.

"Aradia...?" Karkat couldn't think of an end to that sentence that wasn't way too suggestive.

Terezi made a noise of annoyance. "I don't know what your obsession with Aradia and me even is at the moment-"

"So she said no?"

Terezi shut up, cheeks faintly teal. "She's got a family thing. She was originally gonna drop by my place afterwards, but now..." she shrugged. "I'm not even gonna be in town, so there's hardly any point."

"You could... always come with us," Dave offered.

Terezi snorted. "Oh yeah, that's a great idea. I'll just show up at your house on Christmas day and eat all your food. That'll fair great with your older brother."

Dave shrugged. "He honestly wouldn't mind. Bro would never admit it, but he's got this whole complex about always wanting a big family to do big dumb family things with. Besides, you know he loves you."

She shrugged. It wasn't a no.

"So will you come?" Karkat asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

Terezi looked like she was contemplating it for a moment, and then laughed, shoulders slumping again. "Sure. Christmas with the Davekat family. I'm up for that."

Dave's grin was beyond dorky. "Cool."

"Yeah, cool."

It was cool.

 

That was the last major change their plans saw before Christmas itself, which they spent the night before of all bundled up in Terezi's room with hot chocolates and dorky sweaters. It was a really, honestly cliched affair, and Karkat couldn't have enjoyed himself more.

Christmas morning was more of a tired affair than anything, lazy kisses and Dave trying to coax Karkat out of bed for the most part so that they could exchange gifts. (Because even though they'd said almost a month ago that since they were both poor college students there was no point trying to fumble over the well-worn act of gift giving, they'd gone and gotten each other presents anyway.)

Karkat had gotten Kanaya to help him make Dave a sweater-- "the stupidest, most unironic trainwreck you can manage"-- and, just as he had hoped, he watched the coolkid shed a totally uncool tear for the pink and red monstrosity he presented him with, completely adorned with festive snowmen, pumpkins and the occasional wonky heart. He put it on straight away.

Karkat got a usb full of music and romantic comedies, and a little coupon booklet. Upon opening it, he realised that pretty much 99% of the coupons just said "shut up Dave" on them. He might even have went as far to say that it was the best present he'd ever gotten.

The plane ride over, Karkat spent mostly snoozing on Dave's shoulder from a lack of sleep the night before (because really, there is something so magical about being fucked into the mattress over the glow of a plastic discount store christmas tree) and belatedly realising he probably should have been a little more serious in psyching himself up to meet Dave's older brother. Sure, he'd seen the guy before; he'd even had a brief conversation with him once, in senior year when there was a party at John's house and he came to pick up a very drunk Dave. He knew of Karkat already- he realised now that that was probably because Dave had talked about him, which was a thought that still managed to give him butterflies like a freaking wriggler- so it wasn't much of a surprise when he made light, awkward conversation with him while he waited for Dave to collect his freaking bearings and find his shoes. He briefly remembered them talking about school, some new movie that had come out, and then John stumbling into the room, drunk and flushed in the cheeks, to have Bro give him a very this-is-your-fault-you-little-shit-now-I-have-to-deal-with-smashed-Dave look for the remainder of the time it took for Dave to get there so that they could leave.

So yeah, you could say he was a little nervous- nervous enough that it took until about the time the plane started to land for him to actually be contemplating not going.

"Hey, couldn't we- like. Don't you think it would be fun if we stayed in a hotel tonight?"

Dave gave a pretty convincing side-eye. "Hotel?"

Terezi leant over to mirror it perfectly, only hers was somehow a lot creepier.

"Yeah," Karkat fiddled with his sleeves. "It could be fun."

"Why exactly do you want to stay in a hotel when we have a perfectly welcoming apartment waiting for us?"

Karkat shrugged miserably. "Hotel sex?"

Terezi snorted. Dave gave a breathy laugh. "That's a pretty compelling argument, but I'm not actually feelin' like it's genuine. What's up?"

"It's just-" Karkat cut off for the flight attendant to guide them out of their seats, the walk to the exit more awkward than it would have been even with having to shuffle with a lot of other people. Once they were out of the plane, and Karkat started fiddling with his sleeves again, Terezi picked up on the situation and said she'd meet them out the front and was gonna get some food and hail a cab. He waited until she was ahead of them to turn to Dave and continue speaking. "We're pretty serious, yeah?"

Dave frowned. "Serious? Yeah. Yeah, if you want us to be. I mean, I'm not saying we're all up and getting married and settling at suburban desk jobs serious but... we're the fun kind of serious. The, holy shit I'm actually in love with you and I can't see myself being with anybody else, like, ever, serious. Right?"

Karkat stopped. It was dumb, his cheeks were red, people were kind of staring and he was still dealing with the knot in his stomach over the whole meeting Dave's family thing, but Dave looked so flustered and unsure- it would have been rude not to kiss him.

"Yeah, I know all that, you fucker. I love you too. What I'm trying to get at, is... well, we're serious enough that meeting your brother should be a big deal for me, right?"

Dave's face fell. "Oh no. No, don't tell me you're actually nervous to be having dinner with my freakshow."

Karkat shrugged.

"Dude. I had to sit through a day and a half of your clown-cult moirail and his creepy skeleton-chic boyfriend, and you're worried about meeting a middle aged loser who makes his cash on puppet porn?"

"He still raised you."

"Yeah, on doritos and orange crush."

"He has a respectable job and lives in respectable facilities."

"He's fucking a kid practically half his age!"

"Dave," he whined, and then, deciding that that wasn't enough, fished into his pocket and stuck one of the 'shut up Dave' coupons into his hand. Dave shut up. "All I'm saying is I'm a little nervous, okay? I don't have a problem with John- fuck no, I've seen that douchelord in a onesie more times than I care for, he could come to me preaching murder and I probably wouldn't take him very seriously." If anyone asked, he might even go so far as to call John one of his best friends. "And I've sort of met Bro before, so him on his own wouldn't be a big deal if we weren't in this situation, but-" he sighed, dropping his hands and shoving them in his pockets. "We are in this situation. It's not like we're in high school and we're just friends, or even sort of casually dating. Bringing someone home for Christmas, to spend it with your family, is a big deal in anyone's books. You're not scared that your brother's gonna be thinking that too?"

Dave was silent for a moment. Karkat thought for a second that he was just thinking of another way to disagree with them, but then he gave up and raked his hands through his hair. "Oh my God he's gonna be so fucking weird."

By the time they found Terezi with a cab, they were both at a point of a real consideration to just not go, and probably would have ended up feigning illness and going right the hell back home had Terezi not been there to remind them both that they were idiots.

"It's fine, you're fine," she said, urging them into the cab. "I'm gonna sit in the back with you, hope we're all cool with a Karkles sandwhich. Anyway. What's the big deal about meeting Dave's lu- guardian? I find the Striders to be very docile and easy to manage creatures once you get the hang of it."

"How can you even say that about Bro, the man's like Satan on prozac."

"You don't think that that description better suits this kid's moirail?" Terezi jerked her thumb at Karkat so hard that it actually jabbed him in the face. He glowered.

"Look, Dave-"

"Look, Terezi."

She stopped and folded her arms at him. "Oh, real classy. What next, are you gonna tell a deaf girl to listen? No-" she held up a hand, silencing him before he could come back with any retorts, "I've heard quite enough out of you. Karkat?"

Karkat ripped out another coupon.

"So, as I was saying, before my disability was so kindly pointed out by Dave. He's your brother. If he really was being too overbearing or weird-- though I don't even know what you mean by that, I think he's awesome-- and you told him to stop, he would, right?"

Dave shifted in his seat. "Yeah, right after he called me a pussy."

Terezi grinned one of her serial killer grins. "Right. So there's nothing to worry about."

Karkat and Dave both shut up and mumbled their reluctant agreements, settling back in their seats.

It took them an entire thirty seconds to realise that the cab driver was still waiting for them to tell him where to go.

 

"Hey, help a lady with her luggage, would you, jeez," Terezi loaded her bags out of the trunk of the car, cheeks flushing teal briefly with the effort.

"I'm not helping Dave with his bag, it would be sexist of me to help you with yours," Karkat retorted. Terezi walked past him to flick him on the ear.

"You should be honoured to carry my things for me, Karkles, I'm practically royalty. You too, Dave," she clapped her hands, "chop-chop, jeeves, I want to be there before Christmas is over."

They both complied, groaning.

It was a struggle getting up to Dave's apartment carrying both their bags and Terezi's, which were heavier than the average person's. Karkat just wanted to get inside and put everything down, but as soon as they were there, Dave just stopped, staring hard at the door.

"Dave, open the door."

"You open the door," he snapped.

Terezi raised her hand. "I'll open the door."

"Look, just-" Dave cut off as the door started opening from the other side, revealing an overly cheery John in a Santa hat and shorts that showed off enough leg to end world hunger. "I'll open the door!" he said, with a grin that showed off his overbite.

"Dude," Dave said, in that weird way of his where his tone was completely monotonous but he looked like he'd never been happier in his life. He rushed forward to hug his best friend tenderly, and even Karkat couldn't stop his smile from weaving its way onto his face.

"Karkat," John said once he'd pulled away, and before Karkat even had a chance to think about it John was wrapping his arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. When he pulled away, his grin was devious. "Merry Christmas."

 

Bro wasn't as weird as Dave had claimed he would be; or he was, Karkat wasn't sure what even constituted as weird in the Strider household. He first shook Karkat's hand when he saw him, like they'd never met, and then pulled the poor troll into a hug even more bone-crushing than John's. He said, "So you're the lucky gentleman who's been keeping my daughter Dave in check," but Dave told him later that what Bro really meant was "Welcome to the family."

Aradia's family thing apparently only went over lunch, so as soon as she felt it was an appropriate time, Terezi called her and invited her over for dinner. She did it without consulting Bro, but with the way he treated her practically like a daughter, no one doubted he'd be fine with it.

Douche that he was, Dave took Aradia's invitation as an okay to invite the rest of his friends that were in town and available-- which just ended up being Rose, Kanaya and Jade, but that was good enough, especially considering Dave hadn't seen Jade in... well, way too long.

Dinner was the closest thing to a family that Karkat had ever experienced, which would have been sad if it hadn't have been so much fun; Jade telling dirty jokes over the table that Bro laughed the hardest at, Rose trying her best to stay composed after her third glass of wine, Kanaya touching her leg under the table and smiling at everything she said; Dave improvised a rap about carving the turkey while he did so, Karkat threw a potato at him. Bro toasted and said that if he believed in God he'd be thanking him for such a kickass, happy, healthy family, and Terezi burst into tears again, but she was smiling. Later, after dinner, they broke out what seemed like an endless supply of booze and champagne and decided to watch some of the movies Dave had put on the usb for Karkat, and even though all the jokes they were telling were bad and they were knocking some of his favourite movies, he couldn't stop smiling, couldn't get his head off of Dave's shoulder. Something about it was just so sentimental. Of course something had to be amiss.

 

He probably should have clued in when she and Aradia were first holding hands under the table; he just thought it was sweet, that they'd suddenly become so touchy-feely, that she was grabbing Aradia's hand every time someone asked how she was because she was proud of their relationship.

He probably should have clued, too, when she started refusing alcohol, or even when a very drunk Kanaya told her she looked beautiful and glowing and she burst into tears again; he just thought she was happy and overwhelmed. She'd always been emotional.

 

It wasn't until the second movie was ending and she said she needed some air and asked Bro if he'd come up to the roof with her that Karkat realised something might be wrong. He nudged Dave.

"Wh-"

"Hey, have you noticed that something's kinda up with Terezi tonight?"

Dave shrugged, taking a swig from the champagne bottle in his hand. "Something's always up with Terezi."

"No, but," Karkat sighed. "Don't worry. I'm gonna go talk to her, alright? You wanna come with?"

"Sure," Dave said, standing up after him; he was kind of wobbly on his legs, not as smashed as Rose and Jade and-- God forbid, John-- but intoxicated enough that his cheeks were flushed and he was swaying on every third step.

By the time they'd made it to the stairs that led to the roof, Bro was just coming down, jaw tight. He walked right past them.

Dave and Karkat exchanged a look, Dave instantly sobering up enough that his punch-drunk smile was gone. They hurried up to the roof.

When they got up there, they found Terezi crying by the mutilated corpse of one of the old training dummies that Bro had long since sliced the crap out of with a cheap katana, back facing them, arms folded.

They slowed their pace and approached her slowly, standing on either side of her. Dave put his arm around her shoulder and she rested her head on his. They stood there in silence for a while, Terezi crying silently, neither Dave nor Karkat asking why out of patience and respect. By the time she'd stopped, Karkat had already come up with a million scenarios, and a million solutions, because he'd seen this movie a million times. It's the movie where the protagonist has a hard past, and takes the lives of his friends for granted up until the moment he finds out one of his best friends really was going through something similar all along. The confession is charming and dramatic, the road to recovery comical and heart-warming.

So he really wasn't expecting it when, without looking at them, Terezi said, "I have stage three pancreatic cancer."

It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't charming. It was cold, and brutal, and when neither of them said anything, she just started crying again.

The first question anyone asked was, "What's stage three?", and Dave was the one to ask it.

"It means the cancer has spread," she said, wiping at her nose under her sleeve.

Then Karkat asked, "Why didn't you tell us?"

She almost burst into tears again, and it seemed like she would have, but she was all cried out. "I didn't think I'd have to," she said miserably. "I got it taken care of months ago, the operation wasn't even that much of a big deal because it was barely in stage 1. But then recently I started having abdominal pains again and..." she didn't finish her sentence, but she didn't really need to.

"It's curable, right?" Karkat asked. "I mean, obviously it's curable. Stage 3 is, what, not a big deal, right, 3 isn't even that big of a number, it's- it's tiny. Right?"

Terezi smiled at him. Every bulb on the roof had blown but one, the light dim and somehow really fragile against her face when she looked at him, eyes glittering with tears that looked like stars. "They said I'd be lucky if I made it six months," she said. "Most people only make it three."

When they all hugged, Karkat tried to pretend like he wasn't crying.

 

Terezi said that she wanted them to forget about it for the rest of the time they were staying at Bro's, and just have a normal, happy Christmas celebration, but it was hard to go back to smiling and laughing when it was just starting to occur to Karkat that Terezi had a terminal illness. Bro already knew, and he was more respectful of her wishes than Karkat and Dave were-- or more capable, whatever. She didn't want to tell anyone else until she absolutely had to, and Aradia already knew, too, but just sort of smiled sadly at them when they came back in so they figured she hadn't found out tonight.

For all her apparent pain that came with cancer, she went on with the festivities like a champ, not complaining once of back pain or fatigue when they were going to the beach and dicking around on the roof and setting off fireworks on New Year's. (Though she did ask in a really quiet voice if Karkat could help her carry things.)

She told everyone else the night before they were supposed to go home, when Sollux and Eridan and everyone else in town made an appearance for a night of drinking games and movies. Karkat had to leave the room, but when he came back in, everyone was silent and Sollux was hugging her really hard.

 

It was just the kind of thing that wasn't going to get better with time, he figured. It was like some kind of surreal nightmare, coming home on the plane and carrying her bags back to her dorm only to have her tell them that she was actually going to be spending a while in the hospital; she wasn't even supposed to have flown out for Christmas.

Karkat smiled at her and said he and Dave would drive her down like it was no big deal, but that night was the first night in months that he had to cry himself to sleep; he was thankful, at least, that he had Dave's chest to do it into.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas here's a punch in the face


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of potential triggers lie ahead. warnings for things like eating disorders, self harm, alcoholism, dub-con (that isn't really dub-con but could be interpreted as such and yeah).

About a month and a half into what was quickly becomming referred to as “the situation with Terezi” (never “Terezi’s cancer”, or, God forbid, anything that mentioned the fact that she was going to die) Karkat realised that what he was doing was, inexplicably and plainly, Not Dealing.

This Not Dealing he characterized the same way he used to characterize it, back in high school when he also started Not Dealing, around ninth grade when he stopped sleeping and eating and became chronically obsessed with doing one of two things:

a) distracting himself and pretending like there was no problem, or

 b) wallowing in it.

Recently had been more of an ‘a’ situation.

Dave started worrying about him. Hell, everyone started worrying about him. He really wished they wouldn’t. There was nothing worse than having a best friend dying of a cataclysmic disease and having everyone worried about  _you._

He’d never dealt well with stressful situations, really. He still cried over romantic comedies that got even slightly sad, he still had to avoid major conflict so not to start a fight he couldn’t recover from emotionally, he still used anger as his downfall so not to let everyone see him cry over every little thing. Picure him trying to cope with the impending death of the first person he’d ever loved.

He got about an hour of sleep a night, if he was lucky. He knew what Dave was doing, pretending like everything was okay and like he was getting enough sleep, but Karkat was sure he was only able to do so because his shades hid the bags under his eyes. He heard him get up every couple of nights to cry by himself in the bathroom. Sometimes outside.  _Never_ in front of Karkat, because crying in front of Karkat was just an invitation to start a discussion he clearly really, really did not want to have.

So Karkat just didn’t sleep. When he did, he had nightmares, even despite the sopor refills and extensive cuddling and the ocassional attempts to hum him to sleep by his matesprit, who was trying not to let the stress get to him. (It slowly was, anyway.)

He was eating less. And when he said eating less, he meant eating less from a guy who barely had time for breakfast and lunch anyway, so he was barely eating at all most days. Coffee was slowly becoming his best friend, as well as bits and pieces from hospital vending machines and cafeterias on the days he could bare to visit Terezi, which, as far as Dave and the professors of the classes he was skipping were concerned, was every day.

It didn’t take Dave long to figure out that Karkat was skipping class to smoke.

He did it under the pretense of going to see Terezi, because it was embarrassing. He didn’t  _want_ to be one of those losers who picks up a cancer-aiding habit to deal with the stress of someone having cancer. The entire situation was just way too ironic, you’d think Dave would appreciate it.

You wouldn’t think that he’d break down crying when he found out.

"Shit, man, you know I don’t have a problem with this kind of thing, I just-" he flopped down on the bed pathetically, pushing his shades up to his head so that he could put the rest of his face in his hands without the obstruction. He lifted it again after a moment anyway. "I mean, God knows Bro used to smoke like, all throughout my childhood, it’s not smoking I’ve got an issue with. It’s the fact that I know you’re doing it as some fucked up form of punishment against yourself."

Karkat seethed. “Fuck you, how about that? You have no  _idea-_ ”

Dave scoffed. “You tried it at first because you thought, hey, why not try something that’ll kill me and feel kind of good in the process? Only you like things that feel good in a really twisted way, because otherwise you feel selfish, right? Which explains our sex life. Kind of a fucked up way to be, huh?”

His words would have stung a lot more had he not been babbling them, trying in earnest to stop crying. He didn’t mean them the way he was saying them. Karkat still felt defensive, rage flaring up.

“ _Fuck. You._ Maybe I’m smoking because I’m an adult who can make his own choices? My vices being one of them? I don’t know if you’re aware, but cigarettes are pretty fucking legal and socially accepted, dickshit, it’s not like I’m partaking in this estranged social taboo to deal with…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

"But you’re still keeping it from me," Dave said, quietly.

Karkat refused to look at him, sucking in a sharp breath. “Yeah, well, maybe I knew you were gonna react this way. And anyway, who the hell are  _you_ to decide what I do and don’t tell you?”

"Durr, your boyfriend," Dave said, all sarcasm lost somewhere in his suddenly hushed tone. He stood up from the bed to walk over to Karkat, taking the side of his face in his hand. Karkat tried and failed not to lean into it, giving up and just shutting his eyes, sighing. Dave peppered featherlight kisses along his jaw. "I’m sorry, okay? I’m freaking out too. I’m not mad. I’m sorry, I’m not mad, I promise, I shouldn’t have yelled. You- you’re not fucked up, you know I don’t think so. I think you’re incredible, and I love you, and-" he stopped when his breath hitched, rested his head on Karkat’s shoulder and cried miserably into it. Karkat almost froze up, not used to having to deal with Dave being emotional. It was doing disgusting things to his heart, which was currently approximately somewhere in his throat. This situation was horrible, balmy and sticky and uncomfortable, not the kind of emotional breakthrough scene you’d expect to see in movies like this. Everything just felt too bare, wrong, like he was constantly missing the last step on a flight of stairs and falling that short space. Jolt. Step. Jolt. His life was that sinking feeling in your stomach right before your foot hits the floor.

"You’re stressed out because of it, right?" Karkat asked in a murmuring voice that was gentle for him- he could be that, he guessed, surprisingly gentle when it was with someone he really cared about. "Scared because-"

"Of course I’m scared," Dave interrupted, laughing bitterly so that he didn’t choke on his tears. His voice was trembling with the effort to stay composed. It shouldn’t have been so endearing. "For her and for how I’m gonna deal when she’s gone. For  _you._ ”

Karkat resisted the urge to make a face, to push away from Dave. He means well He means well He means well He-

"Why the everloving fuck would you be scared for me, jackass? She’s the one who’s dying."

"I know that," Dave said in a broken voice, making this face that was so pitiful it made Karkat’s stomach collapse in on itself. "You’re obviously not dealing. That’s why I’m scared. Everyone else- they’re scared for her, yeah, and for what it’s gonna be like after. I don’t even wanna think about it. I’m not- that’s not healthy, but I try not to think about it. She’s happier when we’re all laughing and joking like normal anyway. Gets  _really_ mad if you cry in front of her. But you,” he waved a hand, “smoking, and. And that’s not it, right? That’s not the only thing you’re keeping from me?”

Karkat froze up, going rigid with shock in all the time it took for Dave to reach for his arm and pull the sleeve away to reveal the skin underneath. He didn’t look surprised; there was no major change in his expression at all, as he ran his fingers over the new scars, raised imperfections littered almost to the troll’s elbow now. After a moment, he looked up, making perfect eye contact with Karkat, and raised his wrist to his lips to kiss one of the scars. Then he proceeded to kiss every other single one.

Karkat choked, yanking his arm away a second too late; Dave had already decided to hold it perfectly in place, refusing to let go until he’d kissed every single scar.

"Dave, don’t," Karkat pleaded, voice breaking, " _stop,_ you shit-licker, I’m gonna cry, that- that’s not  _romantic,_ that’s horrible-“

"You’re damn right it isn’t romantic," Dave snapped, but his voice was too soft to be imposing. "Nothing about this is romantic. It’s not beautiful. This doesn’t make me want to pity you. This  _scares_ me, Karkat. I’m  _scared_ for you.”

"I’m dealing-"

"This isn’t dealing! Hurting yourself like this, it’s not dealing. Please, just-" he stopped, overcome with tears again. "Please," he said, around a sob, and, "Please," again; "Stop, just- don’t, anymore, please, for me. I love you so much, you asshole, I couldn’t do this without you. None of us could." 

Karkat tore out of it, then, or at least enough to gain the sense to fling his arms around Dave and hold him back, burying his face miserably in the nape of his neck while Dave’s tears slowly wrecked his shirt. In his boyfriend's eyes were constellations, and somehow, this was the thing that always managed to pull him back to earth.

It should have been a nice moment, but it wasn’t.

On Thursday, Feferi and Eridan came to visit. Terezi and Eridan weren’t the greatest of friends, but truthfully he probably just came to give Sollux, who was dealing by throwing himself into coding, the support he needed. Feferi, however, was angry. She marched straight from her airport taxi clad in designer boots and a Chanel pink scowl, leaving Eridan behind for the apparently better task of going straight to the hospital Terezi was staying in and demanding to see one of the doctors treating her. Karkat, Dave and Eridan then had to watch on in horror as she screamed her lungs out at him demanding what he was doing with his time that was apparently so much better than finding a cure.

"Seeing your  _family?!_ " she fumed, face purple. "There are people in this hosital who are never going to see daylight again, and you’re concerned about your  _glubbing family?_ Pick up a phone and call them! It’s more than some of these patients are ever gonna get to do once they’re  _dead,_ because you’ve been too busy with your  _family_ to find a cure!”

She came away from the fight with a fire in her eyes and a violence to her step, marching straight past them as if they weren’t even there.

"Hey- Fef!" Eridan called, apparently the only one she’d actually stop and listen to, even if it wasn’t only to snap at. Seeing Feferi anything but overtly cheery was fucking horrifying.

And then just like that, when she saw therm looking genuinely scared, she snapped out of it. “I’m sorry, you guys, I just-” she stopped on a delicate little sob, flinging herself at Karkat of all people and crying into his shoulder. This was becoming a reoccuring event. He pat her back awkwardly while she cried, craving a cigarette or some fresh air or  _anything else_ but this situation. She finally pulled away, sniffling. “Some people are just so  _shell-fish,_ you know? You have your whole life to spend with your family, and you can’t take the extra time to ke- to help these patients out as much as possible? I swear, as soon as I get my PhD…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “I can’t deal with this right now, I think I need to spend a couple of hours at the gym, at least. Do one of you gentlemen want to accompany me?”

"You know I would on any other day," Eridan said, chewing his bottom lip, "but I kinda did promise Sol I’d come right over to his place. Console him an’ shit. The guy’s a wreck."

Feferi sniffed, apparently understanding. Then, oh God, oh lo and behold bad luck in all its miserly glory, she looked at Karkat. All hopeful and shit. _  
_

He sighed, slumping in his posture. “Yeah, okay.”

Dave had classes to go back to, so Karkat had the pleasure of going with Feferi alone and spending forty five minutes watching her kick the absolute crap out of a punching bag. So he guessed she didn’t get those nice legs from sitting around all day. After a while, breathless and clearly annoyed by the fact that he was just sitting there watching her, she stopped and said, “You know there’s a pool here, right, you could go and swim.”

It was probably better that he did leave her alone, because apparently Feferi’s method of dealing was a damn scary one. He didn’t actually have a swimsuit with him, but he had ten dollars and what harm was a five dollar crappy pile of lycra going to do to harm his life, anyway? The last swimsuit he’d owned had been purchased from a public swimming pool, too.

When Dave came to pick him up he was just holding onto the edge and treading water carelessly with his feet, staring into space in a way that was probably a little bit concerning. He’d been doing so for two hours. Feferi had since moved on to a treadmill. 

"Nice swimsuit," Dave said, lips twitching into a smile at the sight of the full body length thing. Karkat smiled back. Let it be funny, he thought, and let him not put two and two together and realise that it was because he was getting too thin again.

"Yeah, well, I left mine at home," he said, kicking at the water. "It didn’t exactly occur to me this morning when I left that I’d be going swimming with a gym-junky psychopath who thinks that doctors having personal lives is the reason Terezi’s dying."

Dave’s smile didn’t waver, but his jaw tightened for just the tiniest fracture of a second. He reached out a hand. “Well, alright, it’s time to get out and dry off anyway, aqua man. I thought we’d get Thai for dinner and watch one of those atrocities you call a cinematic wonder.”

Karkat rested his cheek on his hand, pouting. “It’s nice in here, though, I think you should get in with me.”

Dave scoffed. “Without a swimsuit, totally, dude, you know I’m always up for ruining perfectly nice jeans with publically contaminated chlorine.”

"So buy one." Karkat rolled his eyes and made a grab for Dave’s hand. To his surprise, Dave flinched away, actualy making the effort to tear his hand out of grabbing reach. He looked genuinely terrified for a second. Slowly, Karkat began to piece things together.

"Do you… not like the water?"

"Pfft, no. No, I totally love water, water is like. Family to me."

"Holy shit, you’re afraid of swimming."

"I  _can’t_ swim,” Dave admitted, going red. “I mean, I didn’t. I never learnt.”

Karkat blinked up at him. After a moment, he said, "Do you want me to teach you?"

 

 

It was the most they'd touched in weeks.

"Ah-" Dave made a small noise, instantly covering his face with his hand and turning red. Karkat was gentle, easing him into the water again with his hand on his matesprit's arm.

"Shh, it's alright, you're alright," he soothed.

To be fair, breaking in after hours wasn't the most morally fair thing to do, but Dave made it clear after one conversation that there was no way he was embarrassing himself in front of anyone other than Karkat.

When he had said he was afraid of water, Karkat thought he meant that he was afraid of drowning. But clearly, that was of little concern to him as he was already making nervous noises and he only had one leg in.

Karkat led him in carefully with one hand grasping his and the other supporting his arm. The height difference would have made it funny in any other situation, but as it was now Dave was a little preoccupied with trying not to fall in.

When he was finally the whole way in, he exhaled in one shaky breath against Karkat's shoulder, head hitting the bone with a hollow thunk.

"So what exactly about the water is scary, to you?" Karkat implored, stroking down the wet length of Dave's back. (His spine shuddered.) "Is it because you think you'll drown?"

Dave said, "No, it's- not that, it's just. I don't know. It's stupid."

Karkat smirked. "You're always stupid."

"I grew up in the city. In this shitty little apartment building, as you know, and- well, Bro never really had the time to teach me how to swim. He was too busy teaching me  _other_ stuff, sure, but never how to swim. And so I kind of just... never bothered to learn anything about it. I even get nervous going to the beach, and I don't even go in, I-" he broke off when his voice cracked. Karkat pressed a kiss to the underside of his chin.

A thought struck him suddenly, and his lips paused in their ministrations. He glanced up at his boyfriend curiously. "What... what were you gonna do then, back at high school? That day on the pier, I mean. If I'd jumped in."

Dave was silent for a very long time, and then finally, barely a whisper, said, "I don't know."

Their kiss tasted of chlorine fumes and something vaguely alcoholic- Dave was drinking, Karkat knew this for a fact because he'd seen the 'care package' Rose, who also was Not Dealing, had sent over with the fifth of scotch- and burned even after Karkat pulled away. After kissing at his neck, it became apparent that Dave was pressing into his thigh pretty persistently. Karkat reached down to cup him through his swimming trunks.

"Shit-  _shit,_ Karkat, just- be careful, holy shit."

Karkat kissed him softly in answer, feeling for his length through the taut material. He kissed at his neck as he did so, eliciting a gentle gasp from the blonde.

"Karkat- babe, not here."

"No one's around," Karkat said, not moving his hand. "And besides, I said I'd help, didn't I? This way you'll relax a little easier."

And with that, he shoved his hand inside of Dave's pants.

" _Ah!_ Fff- uck," Dave cursed, burying his head in Karkat's neck to keep quiet. The water made his movements weird, but he found an angle he could work at after some time, picking up the pace and kissing at Dave's neck in tandem with the flicks of his wrist.

They hadn't done anything like this since hearing about Terezi's news, so it was no surprise that Dave was at full length and panting desperately into his neck within barely a minute. Karkat's own cheeks were flushed with heat; this was almost role reversal, really, having Dave panting into his neck like that.

"Shit, Kar- Karkat, baby, I'm gonna-  _please._ "

It was that that set him off, somehow, the upturn of Karkat's wrist after that word left his mouth; he heard rather than felt Dave reach his climax, hips jerking forward and then locking up as he let out a sob into Karkat's skin. It took a few moments for the both of them to stop breathing so hard.

And then it became apparent that Dave was shaking. Hard.

"Oh, shit," Karkat said, because he didn't know what else to say, and Dave burst into tears.

"Shit shit shit- Dave, I don't- I'm so sorry," he pretty much gasped the words, fumbling to help Dave out of the water. 

The blonde was shaking his head frantically, trying to speak through the hiccups that were suddenly wracking his body. "No- no, don't be- s'fine, Karkat, I'm just being a baby-"

"The fuck you are," Karkat said, but his voice was too quiet to really pack a lot of offense. Holding Dave's chin between his thumb and forefinger, he moved in to kiss his lips, frightningly gentle. Dave made a pathetic noise into his lips and came apart in his arms. 

It was raining outside, and Karkat couldn't spot the constellations in Dave's eyes anymore.

Later, when they were lying in bed and not touching, Dave explained that he only cried because the stress had gotten the better of him, and not because Karkat had vented his frustration into getting Dave off.

"Just to clarify," he said.

Karkat didn't turn to face him. His voice was muffled by the side of his pillow. "You should have told me to stop."

"That's right, I could have. But I didn't want you to," Dave said, plain and simple, and that was that.

Karkat snuck out in the middle of the night for one cigarette and ended up having three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see, it's not all doom and gloom, because karkat jerked dave off semi-publically! ha-ha!
> 
> (i'm kidding that was almost the angstiest smut i've ever written)
> 
> so like um yeah sorry for not updating in ages, i don't really have a proper excuse i've been writing a lot of rosemary and watching a lot of knk and russel howard stand up and one time i left my house with friends. i'll start updating again heaps now, i'm really back into the story at the moment.
> 
> by the waaaaaaaay if you're not following me on tumblr you totally should, because i do take requests and if you want something written for you and it sounds like something i'd be down for i'll totally do it. [bee2knee2.tumblr.com]  
> also i'm doing commissions! and other fun stuff, over at my etsy. [https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/LittleBlackSailboat?section_id=14835814&ref=shopsection_leftnav_5]  
> so yeah, there's that. contributions would be super duper.
> 
> also, as a side note, if i misspell karkat as katkat while i'm trying to write a serious scene again i'm gonna combust.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone cries and the title of the fic makes yet another appearance

More often than not, Dave came home from classes to find that he had to deal with Karkat's Not Dealing, in more ways than one. Sometimes it was the fact that he'd forgotten to feed himself all day, other times it was that he'd smoked an entire pack and slept the whole day and he was drawing dangerously close to failing.

Once it was that he'd locked himself in the bathroom. It was because he was out of cigarettes and he couldn't afford any more- it was because he couldn't visit Terezi at the hospital without crying- it was because he couldn't acknowledge any sort of conflict in his life anymore, a Libra trait he'd picked up from her- it was for a million reasons, but he'd gone in there for the obvious one. And then at some point he'd gotten carried away and the blood loss had made him dizzy and he remembered thinking,  _I could die,_ and not caring nearly as much as he should have. He woke up hours later and Dave was banging violently on the door. He tried to stand up, weakly; the shower had been running for hours, shit, God even knew how much that would cost them in the long run. In the end he didn't manage it, and Dave, fearing the worst, had to break the thing down. 

At some point he'd slipped back into a sleep and didn't wake up again until his matesprit was shaking him vigorously, crying his eyes out.

He seemed to do a lot of that lately.

He stopped shaking him as soon as he saw Karkat's eyes open, but he didn't calm down in the least; just dropped his head to Karkat's chest and continued to bawl his eyes out.

"Why," he was saying, not a question but a mantra, and it took Karkat a long time to figure out he was saying anything at all. "Why."

He answered anyway. "I thought that maybe if I drained all the health from my body, she would have more."

It wasn't the real reason, and Dave knew that, but he embraced him fiercely and let the troll cry into his neck anyway.

There was something surreal about the similarities between accidental-suicide-attempt aftercare and sex aftercare. Dave made him soup and had him drink two glasses of water. They watched some of his favourite movies and cuddled in bed. And when the lights went out, Dave held him so securely, lips ghosting over the top of his ear, whispering the sweetest confessions of love possible: it would have hurt less if he just killed Karkat himself.

He was probably going crazy, but he didn't realise it until a certain incident with Terezi.

He was planning on skipping class again anyway, so when Dave skipped his own to go and visit her and suggested Karkat come with, there wasn't much room to turn him down. 

She was pallid and smaller than ever in her hospital bed- jesus, he could have sworn she'd gotten bonier since he last saw her- and where her hair used to be was now an awkward buzz cut of roots trying desperately to grow back. Had her eyes always been that big, her lashes so frail? Her face was becoming more skeletal by the days.

"Hey," he said, raising a hand in greeting, because seriously, how else did you greet a dying friend you'd been actively avoiding.

He wished he didn't notice when her face lit up at the sight of him, features visibly brightening. She sat up in bed, offering him one of her old terrifyingly toothy grins.

"Karkles, my main man. I've missed that voice."

He and Dave both laughed in tones that were a beat too polite. Karkat caught a momentary flinch on Terezi's part- she  _hated_ being pitied like that- but Dave was quick to correct the falter.

"You never miss my voice, TZ, you gotta know how badly that wounds me. My pride is everything, and next to Karkat, you're the only pretty girl I've got in my life."

"Aw, Dave," she said, reaching out to swat at his chest as he came around to stand next to her bed. "You know I missed your voice too."

"Like hell you have," he said, rolling his eyes. "The only thing you've missed me for is my body, Pyrope."

"Mm, and that," she said, punctuating her sentence with a firm slap of his ass. Dave tried and failed to play off the fact that he squeaked in surprise. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat, and tried to change the topic to Karkat. "You two probably haven't had a real conversation in ages, I'll... go for a walk or something."

He left before either of them could argue.

Karkat swung on his heels awkwardly, lingering in the doorway. He scratched the back of his neck.

Terezi gave a delicate sniff at the air, and wrinkled her nose. "Oh wow, you should really stop smoking, you reek. I can't smell that natural eu du cherry I love so much."

"Terezi-"

"Plus smoking makes your cum taste bad. And we all know Dave's a cum-slut, so he wouldn't exactly appreciate that."

Her grin was maddening.

Karkat sighed, unable to keep the endearing smile from his face. He knew she knew he was smiling like a dork, so there was nothing stopping him from going the whole way and coming around to sit on the side of her bed. He resisted the urge to stroke where her hair used to be.

Terezi gave a faux-dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. "Pissed because I'm not addressing the elephant in the room, eh?"

 Karkat smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It's a pretty big fucking elephant, Terezi."

She gave a shrug as if to mean 'yeah, well', and then had a coughing fit, reaching over for her glass of water and downing it as her cheeks flushed teal. "Sorry," she said, clearly humiliated.

Karkat fumbled to make light of the situation. "Thought you had pancreatic cancer, not throat cancer."

He regretted it almost as soon as he said it, but Terezi found it funny anyway. "It's actually a side effect of the chemo."

Karkat fell silent, the smile that rose on his face when she started laughing completely gone now. "Oh."

Now was when she was supposed to make a joke, turn the conversation around again, lighten everything up. But Karkat watched on, bewildered, as she just seemed to shrink in on herself, looking even tinier and more delicate than before. "The chemo was the worst," she said, voice far away. "Worse than the radiation. I actually wanted to talk to you about that. I'm, um." She shifted around awkwardly, pointing her head away from Karkat even though she wasn't able to look at him anyway. "I'm quitting. The treatments."

It took a while for Karkat to process the information. "But... won't that just slim your life expectancy down?"

Terezi didn't speak.

"No. No, fuck that, I won't let you do this."

"Karkat..." she said, and it was that moment, hearing her use his real name instead of the ridiculous nickname she always used, that made him break down. He gave up with a horrible, embarrassing sobbing noise, and crumbled, collapsing into the palms of his hands. 

He hadn't cried like this, really desperate, pathetic, having given up completely, for a long time. "I just..." he waved a hand pathetically, trying to convey his feelings through mere gestures when he knew words would be even less of enough. Terezi looked like she was on the verge of tears, so Karkat continued talking, because he is stupid. "I hate this. It's so unfair, so... fucked up, this is totally fucked. I just wish it was me who was dying instead of you. Nobody would miss me, not for long anyway, and- and everybody's gonna miss you."

Terezi stared at him for a moment, that terrifying empty gaze he could feel on his skin. Then, blinking out a startlingly large tear, she broke down with one heavy, girlish sob. "Nobody's gonna  _miss you?_ " and then lightning quick, so fast he didn't realise she'd done for a solid three seconds, she reached out and slapped him across the face. "You  _idiot,_ Karkat. Fuck- do you even know how much you mean to me? Nobody's ever meant as much to me as you do. You don't think I would miss you if we switched places? Or  _Dave?_ How the  _fuck_ do you think he'd feel?" She was sobbing now, every word hitched and delayed by another bout of hiccups or babbling. "I can't even believe you'd think to go there, you unbelievable bastard. Do you seriously think I've never cared about you? Because that's a slap to the face if I've ever felt one.  _All throughout high school,_ Karkat, every last minute of it, I was fucking- in love with you, okay? So don't you dare tell me I wouldn't miss you if you were gone, because that's bullshit, and saying you wish you were in my position is cheap and horrible and- and-" _  
_

She didn't get to finish her sentence, because Karkat kissed her.

It didn't last long. Maybe a second of locked lips and then she shoved him away, hard, a hand flying to her mouth in enraged disbelief.

And that's when he noticed Dave standing in the doorway.

As soon as his head turned, the mop of blonde hair disappeared, shooting down the hallway at a quick, embarrassed pace. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck- he looked back to Terezi, vision swimming blots of confusion, but she just shook her head and then turned it promptly away from him, jaw clenched.

So Karkat sprinted after Dave.

It was ridiculous, running through a hospital. Everyone just looked vaguely discouraging, blurred shades of death upon death upon dying, echoed coughs and, very faintly, a nurse insisting he slow down. He didn't catch up with Dave until cold air was hitting him in the face and he caught sight of him, hands in his pockets disappearing down a narrow sidewalk where people went to smoke when they found out that their daughters were dying and their best friends were out of remission again. He caught up to him just when he was making an obvious effort not to choke on an inhale of a clove cigarette. 

Out of breath, Karkat stumbled and nearly fell trying to keep pace with him. "Thought you didn't smoke," he said, because not only was he stupid, he was suicidal, too.

Dave slammed him against a wall; thankfully away from the sight of any onlookers, not that it would have made a lick of difference considering Karkat's first thought was,  _yes, I deserve this. Hit me._  He didn't hit him. He just kept his hold on him there, fingers tight and arm shaking, and took a long, overbearingly enthusiastic drag of his cigarette. "Thought maybe I'd take it up, since all the cool kids are doing it now. Apparently all the cool kids are going around kissing other people, too."

"Dave-"

"No,  _fuck. Fuck,_ Karkat, this isn't okay. This isn't the kind of thing I can bounce back from, the kind of- oh, you're going through a rough fucking time, I get it, please, let me help- thing, I just. Can't." He took another drag, and then dropped the cigarette and Karkat at the same time. Knees wobbly, it was a miracle Karkat didn't slide down the wall. Dave pushed his shades up to his head, rubbing furiously at his eyes for a second. He'd been crying.

He seemed to contemplate what to say for a second, before finally deciding on, "Why?"

Why? What a stupid question. Of course Karkat wasn't going to be able to answer that. Why? Heat of the moment. Why? Because I'm a stupid reckless asshole who doesn't think things through. Why? Because I know what it's like to want somebody so much that it makes you forget you're dying.

"She was- she told me she liked me in high school, and I- oh God, Dave. It was so stupid. I can't believe I- I don't even know why I did it, fuck, fuck she's gonna hate me, and you're gonna hate me, and- and-" he gave up, shuddering out of animation with a half hiccuped noise and slumping against the wall, bowing his head and letting the tears fall aimlessly. Everything blurred, like this; tainted little diamonds he wished weren't so pretty when they fell from him. It was always a miracle, getting rid of a part of himself, even if that part was just water.

"You hate me, right?" he said, finally. "I don't blame you. I hate myself too. That wasn't even a forgiveable thing back there, that was-"

"I don't hate you," Dave interrupted, but he sure as hell looked like he did. "I really, really fucking wish I hated you, Karkat, but I don't, because I am so far gone and so in love with you that I can't stand it and-" he gave up, shaking his head and clenching his jaw. "I just want to help you. I get that you're stressed out because of this. We all are. But you don't see Sol and I making out."

"Dave, that's fucking different and you know it."

"Is it?" he snapped, bitter grin on his face like you couldn't tell he was tearing up again. He stepped back from Karkat, shaking his head. "Anyway, I think you should find somewhere else to sleep. At least for tonight. I can't- I need to think. You being there isn't gonna help that." And then he was walking away, before Karkat even had the chance to tell him to stop.

If it was possible, he'd have sworn that, in that moment, he felt a part of him close further in on itself.

 

It was a miracle that Kanaya let him stay with her. She did so with a too-calm, forced politeness about her, suggested he sleep on the couch and that they could talk about this tomorrow if he wanted. He didn't.

He assumed Aradia would have been the first person Terezi told, but she wasn't there to judge him. She spent almost every night curled up next to Terezi's hospital bed. At least, he reasoned, that meant he hadn't fucked up their relationship, too.

It was 3am when Dave knocked on Kanaya's door, startling her out of bed. They didn't even exchange words; she just looked at him tiredly, stepped aside, and let him come over to lead an only half-asleep Karkat out of bed and back to their dorm. They didn't talk, but Dave held him under the covers, in the complete darkness. Karkat finally understood that saying about how sometimes, feathers could be sharper than knives.

 

Terezi was out of the hospital two days after, having quit treatment just like she said she would. Everybody was overbearingly accepting of this, understanding her position.

"I just don't want to die like that," she explained, shrugging like she was talking about her decision to move houses. "Hooked up to a million tubes and constantly wishing I was somewhere else. I'd rather everything be normal."

Nothing was normal. They tried to make it as normal as possible; after the initial awkwardness between her and Karkat, things quickly took on their usual, if not now slightly embarrassed, mood. She went back to classes. They all hung out at dinnertime, usually for takeout and video games. She and Aradia went on dates, everyone teased them about the obvious amount of new-couple-sex they must have been having, Bro and John and Rose and Jade and Latula came to visit. It was about Terezi; it didn't matter if Sollux couldn't bare to hang out with her for too long if Eridan wasn't there for emotional support, or if Karkat more than once caught Aradia inebriating herself with sopor; it didn't matter if Dave and Karkat only ever talked when they had to. Everyone smiled. Things were okay.

The last month was the hardest. Going to classes everyday became too much, and then going to classes at all became unbearable; it wasn't long before Terezi was talking about moving back home, to rest there peacefully for the next couple of weeks.

"Or months," Karkat encouraged.

"Or years," Dave added, always telling her about the power of positivity and how some people overcame cancer just by visualizing it going away. Terezi just smiled at them and rolled her eyes. It was painfully endearing.

After pulling some strings ("Cancer benefits," she joked, and Aradia lost it and laughed for a solid ten minutes. Everyone was worried she'd completely lost it from hysteria but they kissed for a really long time afterwards so it was sort of okay.) Terezi had the three of them- Karkat, Dave, and Aradia- granted permission to leave school and come stay with her for a little while.

"You don't mind you'll have to do catch-up classes, right?" she said in the car over, her head in Aradia's lap because even sitting up for too long tired her out these days. "'Cause if you do, too late. I'm gonna need company, my house gets wicked boring."

Latula was absolutely frigid with looking after her, rushing around at practically all hours of the day to get her whatever she needed. (Terezi took full advantage of this, in no way holding out on her. It was 4am one time when she said she wanted a full seven punnets of raspberries, even though all of the stores were closed. Latula made the impossible possible. It was great, while Terezi still had her humour.)

Terezi's lusus, confined now to its pen outside in her enormous backyard, was way clingier than usual. Every single second Terezi spent around her she spent trying not to cry.

None of them expected it to happen when it did, but God knew why they would. Karkat figured that dying just wasn't one of those things life prepared you for at all; it neither happened slowly nor quickly and even though they'd spent all this time getting ready, none of them were.

It was around midnight when she called Karkat into her room, bawling her eyes out, and immediately he feared the worst.

He thought,  _oh god, it's happening._

He thought,  _I'm gonna have to be the one to tell everyone._

But he didn't. She wasn't. She was lying on her side, as alive as ever, just clutching her stomach and wincing in pain on every exhale.

"Hey," he whispered, heart hammering.

"Hey," she whispered back, managing a smile.

Karkat came around to sit on the side of her bed with her, before she moved over to give him room to climb under the covers. He did, and she immediately moved his arms so that they were wrapped around her, burying her head in her chest and breathing slowly. 

"You're my best friend," she said, voice hushed despite the fact that her house was so big no one would really hear if she spoke at a normal volume. "You know that, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure. Of course I do."

He felt her smile. It was one of those things he told himself he'd never really forget. "Mm, good. 'Cause you are. Even though you're a total idiot." It was quiet for a while, until he realised she was crying.

"Oh hey- no, Terezi, don't- shit, don't cry, it's okay."

"It's not," she said, around a delicate little sob. She sniffled- it was the kind of thing he'd once have thought was really adorable, had he not recently seen her covered in her own blood and vomit and crying as Aradia tried to coax her to take a bath. "It's not okay at all."

"What's wrong, what hurts," he asked, because there's nothing much else you can ask. Probably everything hurt, anyway.

"Nothing," she admitted, and then rethought, "well, everything, but- I'm  _scared,_ Karkat."

Her voice was barely a whisper. He didn't know what to tell her, so he bit his lip hard.

She looked up at him, eyes sparkling. That was a thing about her he'd always admired, the fact that most blind people had these dull eyes, while hers were full of stars. Terezi was the most amazing friend he'd ever had.

"I don't want to die. I know I talk big game, but- I can't do it. I don't want to be like those rotting headstones you see in human cemeteries. I don't everyone to forget about me."

"No one could ever forget you, okay?" he promised, voice sounding fiercer than he'd meant for it to.

She laughed. "That's easy for you to say. Despite whatever you may believe, everyone loves you."

Karkat was quiet for a moment. Finally, when the silence was thick enough that maybe, just this once, it could act as a security blanket around them, he said, "Well, someone I really love once told me that all cats are grey in the dark. We're all the same when it comes down to it. Everyone you meet- they're gonna die one day. It could be tomorrow, it could be eighty years from now; the point is, no one knows. That's what makes life the way it is. We all end up the same way. And no matter what, you always have somebody who cares about you. I didn't... I didn't believe that enough, when I should have. I used to think that everybody was gonna forget about me. And some people did, because that's just the way it goes." He laughed, the sound of it bitter and familiar. "That's just it, right? That's life. Some people forget. But the really important people, they don't. You never forgot about me. So I'm telling you right now that I will never, ever forget about you."

She was crying, hard silent sobs wracking her body as she shook into his, and eventually he wound his arms tighter around her to hold her in place. He kissed the top of her head, irrevocably platonic, and whispered that he loved her. He thought she might have said it back, but she was crying too hard to really tell. It didn't matter, though. He could tell; he could tell by the way her fingers gripped at his shirt, or at the way she cried  _into_ him, like he was the only friend she ever had, or the way that, after a while, she chanted, in this muted whisper, "Won't forget you, either, so don't forget me."

He let her fall asleep like that, cried out and oddly peaceful, and didn't leave until some time late into the night when a soft snore was escaping the delicate part in her lips and he could be sure that she wasn't going to wake up alone any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gomen for the sads.
> 
> also, side note: thank you so much to everyone for all the wonderful support im getting on here and on tumblr! i actually remembered to maybe check my tag for the first time in forever and it was a really, really lovely feeling to find so many nice posts. :) if you were wondering, i regularly check the tags bee2knee2, all kats are grey in the dark, and akagitd, so if you want me to see something tag it with that and i will be forever indebted to you for acknowledging me. youre all my senpais. all of you.
> 
> new chapter coming soon! get the tissues ready. (it will be happy eventually, i promise that much.)


	24. Chapter 24

Terezi Pyrope died at 5:42 in the morning on a Sunday.

Aradia was the one to find her, but she didn't scream. The others didn't find out until later in the morning, when the sun was fully up and the nurse on call had to be cancelled for a bunch of doctors in fancy lab coats to come in and examine her. The white sheet they pulled over her was the thing that made Aradia break down.

Everyone cried. No one really knew what to do, how to support one another, so they all sort of just huddled together and cried into each others' shoulders, a messy bunch of limbs covered in tears trying to stay rooted to the floor.

No one really knew what to do, now that it was over. Karkat couldn't believe it. He spent twenty minutes just standing at the foot of her bed staring at the indent of where she'd been sleeping, the crumpled bed sheets. Her room still smelled like her. It had barely been a few hours, so there was no reason why it shouldn't, but the fact was enough to make him cry.

The funeral was less than a week later, a ridiculously big thing that past Karkat would have told to Terezi as a joke; he imagined they would have laughed at the idea of a commercialized funeral, bitchy troll girls in expensive dresses and human girls Terezi barely knew crying like they had any right. The sight of it now just made Karkat angry and Dave go pale, but somehow, they both made it through the day.

Aradia lost it when they had to give speeches. She was the only one brave enough to go up there in front of everybody and talk about what Terezi was like, really like, how she hated skimpy little black dresses and thought veils were dumb and liked cherry popsicles and played Silent Hill like it was Mario Kart. She was crying before she finished, led off stage when she was babbling about loving her.

Karkat refused to go up there, and Dave absconded before he could be asked. Karkat and Aradia found him later once they'd lowered her into the ground, sitting by the fresh mound of dirt and picking the petals off of one of the hideous chemically-induced-teal flowers that had been left for her. Aradia had brought red ones. 

"Her three favourite people," she said, sitting down next to Dave, almost exactly on the grave, to Karkat's horror, "had to do with the colour red. She told me that wasn't the reason she liked it, but she's such an awful liar."

Karkat scratched his arm, too numb to feel the cold his goosebumps were suggesting. Everything was too quiet. "How can you just sit there? Don't graveyards freak you out?"

Dave shrugged without looking up. Aradia offered him a smile. "We, um... Terezi and I, back in high school, when we were just friends who flirted a lot. I used to hang out in graveyards all the time, and one day I finally convinced her to come with me and we made out. And wrote a pop song about a strawberry apocalypse." She smiled fondly to herself, like it was a really, really good memory.

"You loved her?" Dave asked, finally, because there was nothing much else to ask.

Aradia shrugged. "A lot. I guess I sort of did in high school, too, but... no one really knows how good they have it in high school. I was a brat back then."

"Didn't it just hurt?" Karkat mumbled, kicking idly at the dry dirt surrounding the grave. "Knowing she was gonna die... and staying with her anyway. You could have gotten out so much earlier."

It was an awful thing to say, but Aradia just smiled at him. "No, I couldn't have. Something about that girl tells me I was stuck no matter what happened."

When the silence that succeeded Aradia's words didn't end, Karkat gave up and sat with them, folding his knees up to his chin and staring blankly at the damp earth of his best friend's grave. 

"So what's the deal, anyway?" Aradia asked, after a long time. "With you and school, or whatever?"

It took Karkat a moment to realise she was talking to him. "What do you mean?"

He regretted it as soon as he asked it. "Well it's just that, Terezi was saying the other day, about how she was worried because you were inquiring at the front office about dropping out."

He could feel Dave's gaze on him. Karkat shrugged, knowing full well that neither of them were about to let him drop this. An explanation was probably due.

To his surprise, neither of them pushed for any further answers, and he didn't talk for the rest of the day. 

The trip home was a plane full of mourners, grim-faced people with broken hearts. Not everyone was going back to school right away. There was too much to be sad about. Those who were going back either didn't acknowledge each other on the flight back, or depended too heavily on each other to be able to even walk on their own. Karkat was of the former. 

He didn't even spare a glance back at Dave once the flight had landed, hands in his pockets headed straight to pick up his bags. He could feel his boyfriend's presence the entire walk back, a few paces behind him, but didn't meet with him until he was out the back and they needed to hail a taxi together.

The ride back was silent.

It wasn't until they were back in their dorm room- past the silent walk onto campus, in the elevator, down the countless rows of monotonous doors to their own- that either of them even properly acknowledged the other. And it was Dave, slamming the door and shoving him against it.

"What-"

"I know you're not okay," Dave said, expression completely sincere. "I can tell you're not dealing. So talk."

"I don't want to talk- fuck, let me  _go-_ "

"Karkat!" The troll shut up abruptly, jaw feeling too tight. Tears were welling in his eyes at the sight of Dave, his gaze hard. After exhaling a shaky breath, the blonde went on. "You haven't been... dealing since we first found out she was sick. I know that it's a lot. Holy shit- holy shit, I know that it's a lot. I don't know what I'm gonna do, I feel like nothing's ever gonna be the same, but... but there's a difference between mourning and not dealing at all, and you're clearly not mourning."

"Fuck you, of course I'm-"

"I'm not done. Everyone loved her, Karkat, it's not just you. But you don't see- you don't see us going crazy like you are. And now you're thinking of dropping  _out?_ Fine if you didn't want to do classes anymore, but- but you didn't even tell me, and that's what scares me. That's what makes me think I'm about to lose you." He took a deep breath. "It's because you don't deal well with stress, right? You spent too much time in high school or whatever freaking out about yourself that you forgot to learn how to deal with other problems. So you just shut them out. I'm right, aren't I?"

Karkat didn't answer him. He didn't have to. Dave knew he was right.

"I don't know what to do," he finally admitted, breath hitching. "I want to help you and I don't know how to, and I'm sorry." Dave leant down to press their lips together, cold and wobbly and not enough and too much all at once. His voice was barely a whisper when he spoke again through clenched teeth, in an effort to stop crying. "I love you, fuck."

Karkat could feel tears forming in his eyes, voice already taking on that wobbly, about-to-cry tone he loathed so much. "Jesus, Dave, stop. I love you too. I love you too, you don't need to-"

He was interrupted with a kiss, and then another, and then suddenly every couple of words that came out of Dave's mouth was punctuated with a kiss, hot and salty, shaky lips against unsure ones. "I don't want to," kiss, "lose you, you idiot," kiss, "love you so much, fuck, don't," kiss, "don't know what to do," kiss, "fuck," kiss, "please tell me," kiss, "how we can fix it, wanna fix it, wanna help you, Kar, love you so much, I can't-"

The next kiss was the end of anything else he might have said, Karkat's arms winding around his neck to hold him in place, clinging to him fiercely while his eyes screwed shut.  _Stop it, you moron,_ he wanted to say.  _If you keep talking like that, I'll definitely lose it._

He could feel his own tears leaking down his chin, clinging to the end of his jawbone like a last hope. Sliding his hand down Dave's back, the other moved up to tangle in his hair, unsure where to touch him, wanting to be attached to all of him at once. It had been so long since he'd depended on him like this, lost himself in the sensation of moving their bodies together; it was way too much, and he was already trying to merge their bodies together again.

Clothes came off in no time, ending up abandoned by the front door like all of Karkat's lost reservations. He found himself against another wall, this time adjacent to their bed, legs wrapped firmly around Dave's waist as they moved together. Complete contact, just their bodies pressed firmly together while Karkat attempted to map every inch of his boyfriend's back just with his fingertips- and then his nails, raking, catching blood and drawing up some spell he wouldn't remember in the morning- Dave's own holding him up, bruisingly by the thighs. Karkat was trembling so hard he could hear his bones crying for mercy.

For such a vocal person, Dave was deafeningly silent when it came down to the serious things. His lips weren't parted with Karkat's skin for long enough periods of time to say anything that mattered, just murmured praises, Karkat's name, 'I love you', over and over and over. He licked poisonously overbearing sonnets into him, spread him with his fingers and- "Fuck," Karkat warbled, the most despair he'd ever heard in his own voice. "Yeah," Dave agreed, pushing the two digits in further and crooking them to get one of those embarrassingly loud moans he seemed so fond of. 

Dave fucked him flat on his back above the covers, grunting in to his neck with a certain agony in his tone. He kept his legs open so far that it  _hurt,_ stretched the muscles so far and yet- it was good, so good, to feel stretched this way, to finally feel an ache he could pinpoint exactly. Dave had his knees up by his ears, and he thought that maybe if he listened hard enough he might be able to hear the bones click in and out of place, hear the creak and groan of his muscles stretching and splaying like an old house being pushed by the wind; his parts coming to life, forced out of their torpor by his boyfriend's rough hands; yanked from lethargy, denied inertia by a greater force. He couldn't breathe. It was wonderful.

When he came, it felt like being split open- a resonant cry of,  _yes, this. This is what I was missing-_ and way too nostalgic of a feeling for someone who had been in this relationship the whole time. He hadn't realised how terribly he needed to be touched. To be reprimanded of his actions, and reassured of them all at once. He let Dave finish inside of him, not minding the way his nerves cried at the overstimulation. If anything, it was a good kind of pain, and he always did like being in a state of awareness brilliant enough that he saw every single contour of his matesprit's face when he came.

He all but collapsed afterwards, not pulling out straight away for the better sake of staying flush against him, legs and arms and torso and everything else coalesced. Karkat listened to his own laboured breathing against Dave's, his heartbeat. 

Eventually, Dave rolled off of him, pulling out carefully and instantly drawing the troll into his arms. Karkat sunk into the embrace lovingly, drinking in the smell; sex, sweat, the gin and cloves on Dave's breath. He missed the spice and perfume of Dave's shampoo. He missed when the smoke didn't override it. Of course this was his fault.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Dave was saying, over and over again. "Please don't leave, I'm sorry. We can fix this. I'll make it better. I love you so much, so fucking much."

"I love you too, I'm not-" Karkat breathed in deeply, catching the scent of his shampoo. His heart swelled with affection; with longing and absolute despair. "I won't go anywhere. I love you, Dave, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so fucked up, I can't- God-"

"Promise," Dave said, into his hair. His voice was wobbling again. "Promise you won't go anywhere."

Karkat wrestled his way out of the embrace so that he could reach his boyfriend's lips. He kissed them fleetingly. "I promise."

They fell asleep like that, naked and tangled above the covers despite the cold weather. Karkat could feel a vestige of what he used to feel for Dave in the moments before he fell asleep- before anything that hurt, just the pure, everything-is-going-to-be-okay love, the kind that made his heart sing and his chest feel light.

And maybe, if all the lights were out and his eyes were shut, he just might be able to convince himself that things would be okay again.

 

 

...

 

 

Karkat Vantas was gone in the morning.

Dave woke up to an empty bed, Karkat's side already freezing. His clothes were gone, his shampoo missing from the shower. At first glance it was like he'd never been there at all.

He'd left one of his shirts. And a few pairs of socks, left over from a few weeks ago in the hamper neither of them ever remembered to take to be washed. The smell of his bath products still lingered in the bathroom, the smell of his hair on his pillow. The scratch marks up Dave's back were surrounded by perfect little crescent moons in the exact shape of his fingernails; the bruises on his neck surrounded by the exact indents of his teeth, every last one of them.

He'd taken his phone, but it went straight to messages when Dave tried to call it. An hour later and it was switched off altogether.

No one had seen him that morning. No one knew where he went. One call to Gamzee confirmed that he wasn't with him, and then one call to Bro confirmed that he wasn't with anyone they knew.

It wasn't like he was missing, or anything. Dave still had clues to go off of, had his phone to call and his pesterchum to contact should he ever get online.

"Give him time," Rose prompted, as soon as she'd flown down; back from the funeral with Kanaya, their fingers perpetually interlinked these days. "He'll turn his phone back on eventually, and I'm sure he'll come home. He just needs some time to breathe, I'm sure."

Dave was sure she was right.

He just had to give him time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unedited bc bluh  
> sorry it's kinda short. new chapter up tomorrow!  
> (coughs this fic is almost ov e r )


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> before you read this chapter, i'd like to announce that this will be the second last chapter. ever for this fic. and i'm actually really sad about this, because i've never, ever enjoyed writing something as much as i've enjoyed writing this. i can't believe all y'all actually read it, that's amazing. you guys are amazing.
> 
> that being said, the next chapter will be an epilogue, and lord knows the chapter notes are gonna be a cheesy as fuck rendition of all my feelings towards all of the lovely, supportive people who have taken the time to bombard me with compliments about my writing and questions about this story. 
> 
> sorry for all the sads. i hope you liked it all anyway. and yes, comments are way, way appreciated.
> 
> enjoy!

_One year later_

 

Karkat stared at the building in front of him, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He really, really shouldn't have been here. But a promise was a promise, right?

Yeah, he sucked at keeping those

He figured he might as well attempt to keep just this one.

He'd heard about Terezi's birthday memorial from Gamzee, who'd he'd kept in loose touch with for the past two years. It wasn't as though they were still best friends or anything; fuck if he could even call himself a decent moirail anymore. But he'd gotten homesick really, really quickly, and there was no way in Hell he was contacting anyone from school. They'd just want to come look for him. Gamzee was more understanding, and after an initial argument, agreed he'd let him stay on his own for as long as he needed. 'I just need some time away', Karkat had said. A whole year ago. Huh. How was that for 'time away'?

He stood in front of her house, stomach tight. There was no way he could do this, and coming here was ultimately the most stupid decision he'd ever made. But he'd promised, hadn't he? He'd promised he wouldn't forget about her.

He'd been in a whole bunch of programs since then. Therapy, twice. Then an official psychiatrist when they diagnosed him. Group therapy four times. Four separate groups, that is. All groups of whiny people crying about how they either wanted to die themselves, or couldn't believe they'd had to watch someone so close to them die.

The only reason he'd gone and finished college was because he felt like he owed it to himself, and to everyone around him. Gamzee never did, Terezi never could. What would Kankri say if he knew he was just planning on running away from all of his problems like that? How would his lusus feel? 

It had been way too long, and yet he still felt like he was overcome with tremors while he stood and procrastinated knocking. He couldn't imagine how he was going to face everyone. Karkat took a deep breath. Just today, he told himself. You just have to get through today, and then everything will be okay.

Bracing himself, he knocked on the door.

It was Rose who answered, calling over her shoulder mid-sentence to everyone else something about Sollux taking his time. She completely froze when she saw him. Didn't even give him the classic once-over, just stared directly into his eyes. It took a horrifyingly long time, but finally, she snapped out of it, and flung herself at him wordlessly.

"Jesus," was the first thing she said, into his ear. Her arms were thinner than he remembered, a lot more delicate, but just as secure. She smelled of strawberries.

"Rose?" Kanaya called, voice coming horrifyingly closer. Oh God, oh fuck, Karkat was already regretting coming here, he shouldn't have come, he should have just-

Her gasp was way too loud, and way too feminine, even for her. He briefly saw her stop over Rose's shoulder, stare at him wide-eyed in the short distance of the doorway. He felt like crying, but he didn't, which was something he'd call progress.

"Who is it?" came another voice from inside; Latula, he figured after a moment. Kanaya dashed back inside, and he faintly heard her voice, an unintelligible murmur through Rose's arms. 

He could pinpoint the exact moment they all figured it out, though, because an entire chorus of gasps and appropriate 'oh my god's rose from the other room. Rose barely let him go in time for the rest of his friends to round the corner, looking at him like he couldn't believe it.

"Please, don't," he was already saying, hands in his pockets again immediately. "Guys, seriously. Today is about Terezi..."

There was Jade, and Aradia, and Tavros, and Vriska, and... fuck, everyone, looking so familiar when they should have looked like strangers. The time away from them felt like decades. He had to keep reminding himself not to give in and just hug them all with all he had.

Because there was Dave, standing timidly at the back of the group, looking like he couldn't believe it. He wasn't wearing his shades, donned in a simple black and red outfit, close to being dressy but not quite there. Hair mussed just so like he remembered... fuck. He let his eyes skim right over his former boyfriend and offered everyone the same fake, tight smile.

"I just thought I'd stop by to... to pay my respects, and all that. U-um." His throat was tight. God, Jesus, there was no way he was going to get through today. "Can someone get me a drink?"

...

The day was spent sitting around Terezi's old living room, drinking and talking and laughing like old times. It was horribly pleasant; the ghosts of old pain and resentment all washed down the drain for the familiar feeling of being around the people they loved most. Here was clearly a group of people who hadn't let Terezi's death get to them, like they all knew she'd have hated for it to. Here was a group of people who were Doing Okay.

Karkat made polite conversation with everyone, awkward small talk about where he'd been taking classes and how yes, he'd officially graduated, no, he wasn't planning on doing a higher degree, sure, he could just write books or maybe get into journalism or something now. Yes, he was okay. Yes, he'd missed them too.

Nobody asked why he'd left, which was expected. And relieving, because he didn't think he'd have been able to stand talking about it. He'd spent enough time crying in tiny doctor's offices and writing about it that he could be comfortable about the fact that Terezi had passed, now, but that did not mean in any way that he was comfortable about himself. He was a piece of shit and he knew it. There was no way he was gonna be able to just come back to everyone now.

He made sure to tell them this quite firmly; that no, he wasn't planning on staying, and he didn't want to hear it. Kanaya looked like she was going to cry when he said it, and he almost took it back.

He didn't end up having to talk to Dave until the end of the day. Really, it was just like back in high school; the awkward way their eyes met, the way they then looked straight back down and Dave shuffled over awkwardly to come and sit with him. Karkat went rigid at the feel of Dave's leg against his own. The blonde held out a cup.

"It's got sopor in it," he explained, and that was enough to make Karkat rip the drink right from his hand and chug it straight down.  
  


"So, how've you been?" Dave asked, politely casual. His grin was tipsy, warm, like maybe they were just old friends who parted on good terms a few years back and were meeting now by chance. It made his heart flutter, made him want to cry. (But of course, there was no way he was going to do that.)

"Fine," Karkat said in answer, trying his best to reciprocate the smile. "I finished school. How are you?"

"I'm fine, too," Dave said, taking a sip from his own drink. "Everyone's been fine. I've got a little longer to go, but- couple months from now and I'll be done. Bro even thinks he might have landed me a record deal doing remixes with a few popular artists."

"Oh?" Karkat's surprise sounded rude, for a second, but Dave just grinned.

"Yeah. It's pretty exciting. John, he- well, he thinks I should be doing something that's a little more 'real'. Little less 'sell-out'-ish, or whatever. He wants me playing cafe gigs on my acoustic for the rest of forever, looks like."

Karkat laughed fondly, imagining that that's the exact thing John would have argued for him. He couldn't really argue himself; the way Dave mixed things was amazing, but it was nothing in comparison to the way he could lose himself while he was playing guitar. "Sounds like him," he acknowledged. "I had this roommate back at my college who said he could see me as a news anchor before he could see me as a writer. He had no knowledge to back that up, just the fact that I had a 'tv personality' voice. Which is utter bullshit anyway."

Dave laughed, a real laugh, so genuine and so  _him_ that it took Karkat by surprise for a second. "Yeah, I'd honestly have to say you're a bit too shouty for that particular choice of career. But hey man, shoot for the stars, aim high and all that. It's your life."

"I could totally see myself being a movie star if anything."

"You could co-star with Jennifer Anniston in one of those awful romantic comedies you like so much."

"That's the dream, Dave, that's the dream."

They both laughed quietly, affectionately, until the sound cut out into total silence, not particularly uncomfortable, at least not for a while.

Then Dave looked up at him, abruptly. "So why'd you leave?"

"Dave..."

"I get it, you don't want to talk about it," he held up two hands, palms towards Karkat, in surrender. "It's cool, I can dig that. Just that... it was kind of abrupt, is all. Would have been nice to give a guy some warning. If you stopped loving me, all you had to-"

"Dave, please don't," he interrupted, voice hard. "Don't sit there assuming like you have any idea why I left. It wasn't about you."

"Right, of course not," Dave agreed, practised nonchalance. What hurt was that Karkat could physically hear the pain in his voice. "I didn't say it was. I'm just- like I said, it would have been nice to have some warning."

"You had your warning," Karkat said, regretting it as soon as he said it. 

Dave's head didn't snap up or anything dramatic, but the tightening of his jaw was more than enough to go off of. "Wasn't much warning," he muttered.

Karkat said nothing. Were they really having this argument? His chest felt tight.

"Anyway," Dave said, slipping into an easy smile again like it was nothing. "I'm not holding it against you, 'cause people are like that. They do abrupt things and hurt people around them inadvertently if they think they're doing the right thing. I'm sure you had your reasons."

"I did," Karkat said, voice hushed.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Then Dave scratched the back of his neck. "So, you seeing anyone?"

Karkat felt his cheeks heat up. "No," he said.

"Really?" Dave implored, raising his eyebrows. He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. "Huh."

"Why, are you?"

"Yep."

" _What?_ "

Dave grinned at him. "Ha, you're totally jealous."

Karkat's cheeks were practically on fire now. He kept his face dejectedly pointed the other way.

"I'm not, by the way."

"You're not what?"

"I'm not seeing anyone."

Karkat shut up, letting a thick silence settle between them. He was humiliated. Dave laughed, sitting up properly and giving him a shove. "Oh, come on, asshole. So you changed your number, huh?"

"Yeah," Karkat said. "Why?"

"Because," Dave said, taking Karkat's hands in his, "I sincerely think you should give me your new one."

He wrenched his hands away from Dave's, heart hammering. "What, no. Why would I do that, I just finished saying that I'm not planning on staying, and-"

"Relax, man, I'm not proposing or anything. I just thought that... well, since you're in town, maybe we could grab a drink or something? Before you go back to... wherever it is you're going back to? Just to talk, nothing else."

Karkat stared at him blankly for a few moments. Then, shoulders slumping, decided,  _why not?_ He doubted he'd end up going, anyway. It wouldn't matter in a few hours.

He gave Dave his new number, writing it on the back of his hand in black ink that smudged immediately. He pretended like he wasn't letting his hands linger close to Dave's, their skin brush, for longer than necessary, passing it off as fumbling with the pen. He pretended like the physical contact didn't hurt. And then, again, he decided,  _why not?_ and stopped on his way out the door to pull him into a one-armed hug goodbye, feigning inebriation. Again, it wouldn't matter in a few hours.

Shoving his hands back into his pockets, Karkat wondered why the cold bit so hard when his skin was most tender. It wasn't even that cold when he went out today, but suddenly his coat seemed too thin, his skin too vulnerable under the flimsy material. 

The sidewalks were damp from where it had been raining, the sky a hazy noir film, ironically. He entertained the fantasy that he was being chased, for a while, picked up the pace of his steps and dared nervous looks over his shoulder at confused strangers. It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter.

The fact that he'd waited for  _this day_ was stupid enough on its own, the kind of dramatic thing he'd have liked to read about. That's what made it so fitting, what made it something he could actually do. He'd gotten through today, hadn't he?

Terezi's grave looked exactly the same as he last left it, as far as he could tell, if not now a little damp from the earlier rainfall. Its colour was obscured, darkened with the weather. There were messy patches of grass growing around it, tousled from the wind just like her hair would have been. He smiled at the stupid thought, crouching down to wipe away the rain with his sleeve, so that her name was dry. "Loved and remembered by all". He wondered what his own tombstone would say.

"Got my diploma," he said, proudly. She didn't answer. Of course not. He smiled anyway. "If there was a heaven I'd come show you. I mean, if I ended up there. Um." He scratched at the back of his neck, let out a sigh. "This is so fucking stupid. I just came to bring you this. And to tell you that if you're a ghost- well, first of all, fuck you for not haunting me, I could have done with the good company- and I hope you're doing okay. Everyone else is, too."

He fished around in his pockets for the necklace, the rusted gold piece his roommate's girlfriend had thrown at his face when they broke up two months ago. It was engraved with the word 'forever', a mockery of how quickly their relationship was actually over. It was a story she would have liked. (One Dave would have laughed at.) 

Karkat placed the necklace carefully on her grave.

Cemeteries had always creeped him out. Unlike the weirder of his friends, who had apparently frequented them throughout highschool, he'd always thought they were  _too_ quiet. Not like the ocean, with its screaming tide and roaring waves and laughing rocks. He'd always wanted to end up in the sea.

The walk back had his stomach twisting with the most hilarious sense of deja-vu he thought he'd ever experienced. Funny, how things change. Last time the sun was out, now it was hiding from him. Like it was embarrassed to see how, in the space of so many years, so much opportunity for progress, so many new things, he'd just ended up back here anyway.

The boardwalk made more noise than he last remembered, like a coffin lid rising in some old, cheesy horror movie. It made him think of film festivals, of zombie paraphernalia, of swords and Dave. The greyish sand looked worn, not the same thing he had watched countless happy people stumble around in when he was younger. The chubby blonde girl in the polka dot swimsuit, the lanky teenager desperately trying to score with some foreigner who was only visiting for the summer, the mother and the child who wouldn't stop asking questions about fish, the dark haired couple who looked like something off of the cover of a teen fiction romance novella. He wondered if any of them remembered the alien kid so far from home, the preteen who wrote in his journal a lot and refused to touch the water, the teenage boy with the scars on his wrists and hair messy enough to house a family of birds in. They weren't here now, anyway. They could keep wondering.

The walk was short. The birds were quiet. And below, the water crashed on, stopping for nobody.

Not even this pathetic excuse for a troll.

Karkat reached over the metal railing, hissing at its temperature, before he hoisted himself over the edge. It was still wet, and he almost slipped, only regaining his grip and footing at the last second. His heart hammered. His mouth felt dry. He was horrified, though only because his first thought had been,  _finally._

He pressed himself back against the metal bars, shutting his eyes and tipping his head up to the sky. Almost as if in offering, though God knows who would even want him. The air felt cool on his skin, pleasantly wet. Outside was the kind of chill that went straight to your bones, made the tips of your fingers feel like chalk. Karkat took a series of deep breaths. In, out. Lungs expanding. He opened his eyes and stared right down at the ocean.

The waves were crashing so violently he could have pretended they were waving to him, as depressing as that thought was.

He'd never even contacted Kankri. As much as he complained about him, that asshole was the only thing that stopped him trying to stow away straight back to Alternia when he was deported here in the first place. Fuck, he'd forgotten to ask for John's number, to call and congratulate him and Bro on their engagement. Wasn't he going to suggest to Aradia that they light some candles at Terezi's grave?

The last time he kissed Dave had been a rush, an emotional purge. Screw those people who said they didn't believe in regrets, he regretted that with all he had. Why hadn't he just stayed with him a little longer, indulged himself just a couple more days before he set off? Kissed him a little gentler, told him he loved him just a little quieter, so that he believed it. Dave was the only thing he'd ever really, completely and wholeheartedly wanted or needed.

And what a selfish thing to want, to need, when you were this broken shell of anything worth loving yourself.

Karkat took a deep breath and started to count.

"Ten... nine..."

Huh, look at that. He was shaking. How pathetic of him.

"Eight... seven..."

And was that really the sun, making that one particular cloud so bright? Fuck, that was white.

"Six... f-five..."

Oh God, there goes his stomach, right down to his toes. He started thinking of obituaries, moss over tombstones, sterile gloved hands carefully painting the faces of the dead. What clothes would they bury him in? Would they even find his body? Would anyone notice he was gone, after he told all of his friends that he was just going to disappear again? Maybe he'd wash up on shore, and some teenagers gone for a midnight swim would find him, some sick scene from a B-grade movie-

"Four... thr-"

He cut off abruptly with the inane beep of his phone cutting into his awareness. It took him exactly three more of the seconds he was planning on waiting to realise it was his ring tone.

Hands shaking, he fumbled to reach into his pocket and bring it to his ear, pushing his weight back against the railing just in case the support of one hand was not enough.

"Hello?"

"Hey man, so I decided that twenty minutes is  _way_ more than enough time for me to play hard to get, so I'm just gonna come out and suggest that you and I go grab some drinks right about now. Or five minutes ago. Preferably five minutes ago."

Karkat almost dropped his phone on a sudden intake of breath, clutching it closer to his ear and blinking past the wind, eyes suddenly irritated. "Dave?"

"Yeah, who the hell else did you think it was gonna be? Aint no frickin tooth fairy, but I can still wear the dress if that's what you're into. So what do you say? You. Me. Drinks."

"Dave, I don't-"

"No, shh, don't turn me down, okay. I can't- hold on.  _Guys, yo, shut the fuck up for a sec, I'm doing the whole gallant feelings-y confession thing._ Sorry. Anyway, I, uh- oh fuck it. I miss you. So fucking much and- I know this is stupid, and needy, and really psychotic of me so I won't blame you if you hate me or wanna get a restraining order because I can't take a hint- but I can't just go on pretending like you didn't mean anything to me. Or, well. Everything to me. You still do. So if there's-" he was crying, fuck, fuck fuck fuck he was crying Karkat could hear him crying- "if there's any part of you that still loves me, still wants to try. Fuck, we could make it work. We don't even have to- y'know? We could just talk. I need to be sure you're okay at least. I love you. Fuck, that's it, that's just it. I love you."

And then it was all happening at once, tears pouring down his face, hiccups racking his body. His vision swam and his sight was foggy and Jesus Christ, he could hear Dave breathing on the other end of the line, hear the hitch in his breath that meant he was crying, too, that this was real, he loved him enough that he couldn't help but cry about it.

His voice was far away. "Fuck you. This sort of thing doesn't happen twice."

Dave laughed through his tears, not understanding. "I know- shit, but what about our relationship has ever been normal?"

Karkat just cried. His sobs were loud and horrible, fingers gripping the railing so tight it hurt. He wondered if bones could bruise, and if so, would it show on his fingers? How tightly he'd held on at the end?

"We're all on our way to visit Terezi's grave, where are you? I'll come pick you up."

Karkat didn't answer. He tried in earnest to stop crying, hyperventilating his breaths. Oh God oh shit fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck no no this wasn't how this was meant to go at all oh God no fuck shit-

"Karkat?"

He took another deep breath. His voice was tiny, deflated, barely audible, but finally, he said, "...I'm at the beach."

The line was silent for a whole three seconds. Below him, Karkat could hear the ocean, sending up its violent war-cry, like it was impatient, like he was taking too long. The Earth held its breath, wholly, for exactly one moment.

Then everything seemed to explode at once.

"Don't you move.  _Don't you fucking move, Karkat-_ okay, just- fuck, fuck. Fuck, stay right there. Don't move from wherever you are, I'm coming- Sollux, no, fuck, just drive faster- go to the beach, you idiot- yes, that one! Karkat, I need you to listen to me, baby, you need to listen. Okay, just- don't move, stay there, it's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be okay-"

"Dave..."

" _No, shit._ Fuck you, you can't do this to me. You stay  _right there,_ Karkat, or so help me God-  _Sol can you not drive any faster._ It's gonna be okay, I'm here, it's- I'm right around the corner, okay? It's gonne be fine. I'm-"

He cut off abruptly, and Karkat's eyes snapped wide open at the sound of a slamming car door, almost directly under him. He started hyperventilating again, dropped the phone, watched it fall and become a part of the black water beneath him.

" _Karkat!_ " 

Dave screamed it at him, his footsteps approaching, banging on the stairs, slipping on the drenched wood, thundering towards him-

Without sparing one glance back at him, Karkat pushed forward, and flung himself from the railing.

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

His legs broke when he hit the water.

That was the first thing that occurred to him, and it came with the sudden sharp, all-encompassing,  _blinding_ pain when his feet made contact with the ocean. 

It was like sliding straight through concrete; everywhere a sharp, jagged pain shot from his toes to the top of his spine, freezing confusion that numbed the pain.

He opened his mouth and immediately swallowed what felt like his bodyweight in water.

Fuck-

Fire ignited on his skin, so cold it burned, and then-

Fuck-

Lit up his lungs like fireworks, choked him beyond comprehension, stung his eyes and ripped at his nostrils, filled his ears, swam in all of his organs-

Fuck-

Regret. Regret flared up in him immediately, more powerful than any other sensation he might have been feeling. He desperately tried to kick his way to the surface, but he was physically unable to move his legs. The impact of another wave somewhere above him sent him tumbling again. Everywhere was pitch black pain.

Fuck. Dave was going to cry. Sollux was going to lock himself away. Aradia was going to scream. Kanaya was going to lose it. Rose was going to go crazy. Jade was-

Fuck-

The sensation of drowning was like being choked while having a knife held to your temple. A headache, that's what he was experiencing, while the salt water ate away at his ability to breathe. What was oxygen, again, what did that feel like?

He couldn't stop picturing it. Fuck to those people who say that your life flashes before your eyes, because all Karkat could see was his death. Dave forty years from now visiting his grave and breaking down into tears. His friends a year from now sitting around his house for his birthday memorial. Some stranger seeing his name in the paper a week from now, a tiny space in the obituaries no one was actually going to read. Kankri being informed he had to plan his funeral a few days from now, choking up at the thought of how they'd have to have a closed-casket ceremony. Onlookers staring down at the water tomorrow, realising that someone had jumped, that they'd never even known his name. Dave diving into the water, desperately trying to save him-

Only Dave was actually diving into the water, desperately trying to save him.

He found the surface like you find yourself coming into contact with a brick wall: painfully, suddenly, and all shock and dysphoria. His first instinct was to claw at the water, to climb higher, free himself. There was something- two somethings- constricting his arms, dragging him away from the direction he was trying to go to, messing with what was already a black cloud of confusion in his head. He opened his mouth to gasp for air, the sound ragged and choked as he tasted blood and felt water run down his chin.

Fuck, no, he was  _drowning,_ couldn't whoever was pulling him see that, he had to get out of the water, had to get to Dave, had to- to-

He felt himself dragged onto the shore, sand scraping roughly past the heavy wetness of his clothes and stinging his already cold-sensitive skin. Everything was raw, and he realised that his eyes were open, that even though everything was spinning he could see; everything kind of shuddered into focus, the sight of the beach above him, the sand under him, the blurry crowd of people- hey, he knew them!- staring at him, Dave above him, around him, cradling him and shaking him and screaming-

"-at!  _Karkat, fuck, please! Please, Karkat!"_

He blinked up at him, features coming into focus all at once. His face and hair were drenched, grains of sand sticking to his chin, his cheeks, like freckles in disguise. Droplets of water hung from his chin, poured from his eyes, coated his lips, which were blue with cold and shaking and just asking to be kissed.

He tried to push himself up to do so, but only got so far as to lean up on his arm before he was throwing up water all over Dave's lap. He choked on the last gush of it, coughing violently a fit of blood and salt and water. His eyes stung. What the fuck had just happened?

Whatever had happened, Dave was clutching him to his chest, sobbing rough, embarrassing noises into his hair, wetness pouring from his eyes and his nose. Was he crying? He was rocking him, arms so tight a vice around him that it hurt. But for once, Karkat wasn't complaining. This felt like a safe place. He figured he might as well spend the rest of forever right here.

Dave yelled something to Kanaya about calling an ambulance, pressing hard kisses into the sticky part of his hair where he'd been crying, his forehead, wet with a sheen of sweat and water and rough with sand, parting his hair, pushing it back, kissing his face all over. Karkat blinked up at him, mouth hanging slightly open, throat raw.

At some point, he looked past Dave, up at the sky, where the sun was finally poking its obnoxious head out from behind a cloud he thought it might have been hiding behind earlier. The brightness, after all that dark chaos, hurt his eyes badly. But something about it told him it was going to be alright.

"Everything's going to be alright. I'm here. It's okay now. I've got you."

 


	26. Chapter 26

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay?"

"Yes, asshole, just-"

"Okay, let me-"

"Dave!" 

The blonde abruptly let go, holding two hands up in a gesture of surrender. Karkat glared at him, hobbling up and out of the car on his two crutches. He stumbled at the last second and went crashing straight down to the asphalt, landing directly on his ass. 

Dave fell beside him, bursting into laughter that he tried to muffle into Karkat's shoulder, all snorts and hysteria. Karkat groaned and halfheartedly attempted to shove him away. "God, you are such an unbelievable jackass."

"Sorry, dude," Dave managed around his laughs, still gasping for air. "It's just that you're a real  _stand up guy._ "

He burst out laughing again, ignoring the fact that Karkat was just sitting there glaring at nothing.

"A real  _leg_ end, don't you agree?"

"Stop, oh my God."

"You must have a really  _balanced_ diet."

"That one wasn't even a proper pun, you idiot," he said, but he was laughing now, too.

They sat there laughing together like a pair of dorks for close to five minutes before they realised that the cab driver was staring. Dusting himself off, Dave stood up and helped Karkat with his crutches so that they could take their bags and go.

The whole apartment was decked out with Christmas decorations, tacky lights and dollar store tinsel, that comforting plastic smell. John answered the door in a santa hat and an oversized "bun in the oven" t-shirt, toothy smile and bone-crushing hug.

"Nice shirt, dingus. Shit man, you're glowing," Dave commented, rubbing his stomach on the way in. John elbowed him, rolling his eyes before pulling Karkat into a hug next. "Thanks, it's Jade's."

"Well I didn't think it was Bro's. Actually no, scratch that, this is exactly something he would wear. Anyway, how's she doing?"

"She's crabby," John said, daring a nervous glance back inside. "And the smell of chicken makes her nauseous."

Dave shook his head, walking past him into the apartment. "Still can't believe she's surrogating for you two nerds."

Lunch was a ridiculously large affair, every friend they'd ever had squeezing into the apartment (and then later up to the roof, which was appropriately adorned with the longest plastic table Karkat had ever seen) to congratulate the dork duo on their engagement and recent decision to have a baby. Karkat's own finger felt heavy, the weight of the ring that had been on it earlier today yet to dissipate. He'd asked Dave on the way over, if they should tell everyone. Dave had taken the rings from their fingers and slipped them into his coat pocket, offering an impish grin. "Save it for boxing day. Less chance of mother goose Egderp stealing our thunder that way."

Dave had proposed the day he got out of hospital, five and a half weeks ago while they were trying to navigate their way through six inches of snow surrounding the walkway with new crutches. It was the morning after the fourth night in a row Dave had spent beside his bed. First it had been because they were talking more, because Karkat wasn't on so many meds and smiled at everything Dave said. Then it had been because Karkat wouldn't let go of his hand long enough to let him go home at the end of the day.

He'd stopped halfway down the sidewalk and tried to get on one knee, only being Dave he ended up falling and landing on two knees instead. Karkat said, "Are you going to tie my laces?" And Dave, wordlessly, fumbled around in his pockets until he could hold the ring box up.

The answer was obviously yes, but since it was the shittiest proposal ever, Karkat said no, try harder. So they made a game out of it, each taking turns to find the most ridiculously clichéd way possible to propose. Karkat thought he'd won it when, on Halloween, under the glow of the television of their new apartment, he held a wrapped piece of candy against Dave's cheek and said, "You're the sweetest, marry me?" But then Dave had to show him up by coming up behind him when they were on that day cruise and changing the lyrics of My Heart Will Go On to an appropriate proposal. 

It wasn't until last night, when they were lying in bed marathoning vines and eating cold pizza, that Dave stopped and said, "Wait, don't move." He proceeded to "magically" pull the ring out from behind Karkat's ear, grinning at his own genius. Karkat had just been about to blush and flutter his eyelashes like the perfect bride when Dave leaned in, lips ghosting his ear, and said, "Seriously, though. Will you marry me?"

John popped the cork off of the champagne bottle and Dave made a joke about how he probably shouldn't have been drinking. They held hands under the table, took a drink every time someone said the word "parenthood", co-rapped a terrible song about Christmas trees when Rose dared them to. Everything glowed.

..

The morning after had been the hardest part, when Karkat had woken up in the hospital after a long night of sleeping under anaesthesia to see Gamzee passed out in the plastic chair next to his bed. A nurse had come in and had him answer some questions, brought him soup and water, examined the condition of his legs. Gamzee woke up just as she was explaining that Karkat was lucky only one of them was properly broken, and she left them alone.

They were silent for a while.

"Where's Kurloz?" Karkat finally asked.

"Back at home," Gamzee said, wiping sleep from his eye. "I caught the first flight in last night when I heard. Tavbro called me."

"I'm sorry," Karkat blurted, unsure of what else to say.

Gamzee shook his head, leaning forward to pull his moiral into a tight embrace. "Nah, brother, it's good. No big motherfuckin' thing to be sorry about or nothin'. Just had me all up and scared is all. Bawled my poor little eyes out the whole plane ride over."

"I'm sorry I made you cry," Karkat said, realising he was tearing up himself. He hid his face in Gamzee's shoulder. "You didn't have to come down. I'm okay."

"Sure don't look like. I'd say I have a fair right to be concerned, when a motherfucker don't contact me properly for a whole year and then winds up in hospital try'na end his own miraculous life. Shit's all kinds of unfair, best friend. All kinds of it."

"I'm sorry," Karkat said again, sounding like a broken record. "I'm really sorry, Gamzee, shit, I am. I won't do it again. I was being stupid. I thought- I don't know what I thought. Like I just couldn't do it anymore."

Gamzee pulled away to hold him by the arms, looking right into his eyes. "Now, motherfuckers are feelin' like that everyday, all over the whole goddamn planet. I'm not sayin' that that makes your feelings any kind of irrelevant, just that you're not alone or nothin', you know? Someone's always gonna be lookin' out for you. In your case, that someone is me. Or any of your other friends, and hell, you got heaps of them. All I'm sayin' is, there'd be no point in livin' if we weren't up for tryin'."

Karkat smiled at him through his tears. "I know, Gam. Thanks. I'm really sorry."

Gamzee pulled him back in for a tigher hug. "I know you are, motherfucker, I know."

Doctors came and spoke to him. He was referred to a psychiatrist, a lanky troll with tight curls and pencilled in eyebrows, but he turned them down. He was done shutting his friends out, keeping his problems in tiny white rooms and written like secrets on clip-boards. He's go and talk to Kanaya, or Rose about this. Or-

As if only just remembering him now, Karkat pulled away from Gamzee's embrace, scrambling around for his phone. "I have to... shit, do you know where my phone is, I have to make a call."

"Whoa, slow down, brother, I got you. What's up?"

"I have to call Dave," he said, looking frantic. "He- fuck, I passed out on the way to the hospital, didn't I? I didn't even get a chance to talk to him after he... well, fuck, he saved me."

"I gotcha covered, bro, I got his number right here," Gamzee said, ever the epitome of calm, digging around his large pant pockets for his phone. As if reading Karkat's mind, he went on to explain himself. "I got in touch with him when you first started texting me. To let him know you were okay and all that shit. He was real fuckin' worried, called me every other week to ask if you'd been by my place yet. Guy's crazy in love with you, Karbro.  _Crazy._ "

Karkat's cheeks heated up, shame flooding his every inch. He cleared his throat and gestured at the phone. "Can I... um... yeah."

Gamzee left the room so that he could make the call, chickening out four times before he actually clicked on the contact. Dave answered on the third ring.

"Gamzee, how is he?"

Karkat took a deep breath and braced himself.

"I'm still in love with you."

..

"Dirk you are  _not_ lighting those things up with our surrogate mother present! Fireworks could scare her into a miscarriage, you know!"

"No they couldn't, John, you big baby," Jade said, grunting under her breath as she hoisted herself up from the table.  "Light 'em up, papa Strider!"

Blues and oranges exploded in the sky above, a weirdly majestic display against the white city laid out before them. Before the edge of the building that overlooked the sun's early departure into nightfall, John rested his head against Bro's shoulder, sliding an arm around his fiancée's waist. Dave lent right in to Karkat's ear to whisper, "Oh my fucking God how homo is that", but something about his tone told Karkat that what he really meant was, "Fuck, I'm happy for them."

After the fireworks display, they all went inside for a Christmas movie marathon, passing around hot chocolate like it was a precious resource. Karkat sat with his head in Dave's lap, slowly getting high off of the sopor chocolates Gamzee was passing around, cheeks warm. He couldn't stop smiling. It was so stupid. Everything was light and happy and Totally and Completely Okay for once in his life, and he couldn't stop smiling. Couldn't stop touching his boyfriend- his fiancée- everywhere, running his hand up his arm and playing with his fingers and planting casual kisses on his knuckles while he tried to pay attention to the plot development in Home Alone 2.

When it started to get late, and Dave had been nuzzling at his ear for close to ten minutes, he whispered something about "going to bed soon", which definitely meant "having sex in the only bedroom while everyone else passed out drunk in the living room". Karkat nodded to him, held up a finger as if to say 'wait', and stood up in front of the tv.

"Excuthe me, douthe-nubth, down in front," Sollux hollered, an obvious smile to his voice from somewhere in the pile of limbs on the floor. Karkat shook his head vigorously- fuck he was dizzy- and waved his hands.

"Alright, I need... uh, I need everyone to like, shut up for a second, I have an important announcement."

John wrestled the remote out from underneath his half-asleep pregnancy-heavy friend, paused the movie.

Karkat took a series of calming breaths, building up the anticipation.

"Today, chucklefuck." 

"We were gonna wait until tomorrow, when you were all way more sober and way less excited about John turning over a new leaf into motherhood, but like, fuck, okay." He laughed at himself. Half his crowd of moron friends cheered for him to get on with it. Karkat took one last deep breath. "Dave and I are engaged."

"Holy  _shit,_ " Rose called, being the first to turn her gasp of surprise into something intelligible. "Is  _everyone_ gonna get married before I do?"

"I told you," Kanaya chastised, slapping her leg playfully. "I am going to propose the minute you graduate."

Congratulations were sent round the room, those who were sober enough to stand stumbling over to hug him, bone-crushingly hard and into the television. Jade was hugging Dave and crying into his shoulder, telling him how happy she was for him, how she knew they were going to end up together. Pregnancy hormones. Karkat went to roll his eyes and ended up smiling.

"Congrats on joinin' the bandwagon, man," Bro said, raising his beer in congratulations. "Domesticity's a bitch, but she's a sweet one."

Murmurs of agreement came from every sorry couple in the room.

Karkat snorted. "Like hell I'm like any of you godforsaken losers. My marriage is gonna be fucking  _awesome,_ because I'm me, and you guys are  _you._ "

"Dude," Dave said, laughing on a sip of beer. "Cats... grey...?"

Despite his words, looking around the room, Karkat had never felt like he could relate to any group of people more. As stupid as they were, these idiots were his family. 

And he wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [cue dramatic "everything's gonna be okay" hopeful music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB_PZSnen5A]
> 
> i'm gonna cry. like there are gonna be tears and they are gonna be coming out of my eyes, all wholly majestic and emotional and shit.
> 
> thank you SO SO SO SO SO much to everyone for their wonderful support! this was so much fun to write, and holy shit, this verse is my favourite verse that i have ever written. i can't believe i actually got it done and finished it. that's a fucking achievement if i've ever seen one.
> 
> i hope y'all liked it and i hope it wasn't too cheesy (what the fuck do i care if it was though lmao this was so much fuckin fun to write i'm actually tearing up holy crap) and that i did okay on all of the characters! this is a formal apology about the death of our dearly beloved terezi. i promise i didn't kill her off because i hate her or anything. she's my zodiac patron and my greatest love.  
> also, i'm sorry (not sorry that is) to everyone i made cry! isn't that the best compliment you can get as a writer, though, that you made your readers cry? it totally is. so thanks for that.
> 
> i will definitely be doing side-fics with this universe, and i've got a ton of other davekat stuff i'm working on, so if you're sitting there like, no, holy shit, dayna is the greatest writer of our time, what am i gonna do, dw. i've gotchu covered. on that note, yeah, totally feel free to go check out my other shit. and send me requests???? i like requests. i'll totally do requests if i get around to them. or you can commission me, which i'll DEFINITELY do right away. like, immediately, that day or the one after. commissions are like prozac for me.
> 
> so yeah ugh sorry in conclusion THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone for commenting and keeping up with this story and just hOLY SHIT GUYS wow thank you. ilu. davekat shippers are my favourite shippers, because not only to we share an otp, but we share a love for reading about said dumb dorky otp in the form of elongated fanfiction like this one. for that, i salute you. all of you. good job. 
> 
> <3


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